HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL FRIENDS AND TO ALL GERRILA

Iran hanged two people today convicted of smuggling drugs in a southeastern province bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, official media reported.

The two were put to death in Zahedan prison in the volatile border province of Sistan-Baluchestan, which is notorious for clashes between security forces and drug traffickers, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"These two people were convicted of buying, delivering and keeping 59 kg of drugs .... and the sentence was carried out this morning," IRNA said.

Iran's border regions are a major smuggling route for drugs and other contraband. More than 3,300 Iranian security personnel have died in the region fighting drug traffickers since Iran's 1979 revolution.

Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran's sharia law, practised since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The number of executions in Iran, many in public, has increased since July, when police started a crackdown on "immoral behaviour".

NCRI- More than 100 Shiite sheikhs and personalities from across Iraq condemned Iranian regime's meddling in Iraq and expressed their support for the main Iranian opposition group, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)

In a meeting in Ashraf City, North East of Baghdad, on the occasion of Shiite feast of Ghadir, speakers from Southern Iraqi provinces of Missan, Dhiqar, Najaf, Karbal and Muthanna asserted that the Iraqi people and PMOI were faced with a common enemy in Iraq, the mullahs’ regime ruling Iran and its agents in Iraq.

The Iraqi Shiite personalities stressed that people in Iran and Iraq would not achieve unity, security and stability unless there is a democratic change in Iran.

On November 22, 2007, a petition signed by 300,000 Iraqi Shiites condemned the Iranian regime's campaign against the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and declared their support for the organization. The statement declared that the Iranian regime is fomenting violence in Iraq.

The statement which was widely covered by the media had been signed by Iraqi Shiite Muslims in the Iraqi southern provinces and there were 14 clergymen, 600 Sheikhs, 1,250 jurists, 2,200 physician, engineers, university professors and 25,000 women among the signatories.

In June 2006, some 5.2 million Iraqis including 121 political parties and social groups, 700,000 women, 14,000 lawyers and jurists, 19,000 physicians, 35,000 engineers, 320 clerics, 540 professors, 2,000 tribal sheikhs and 300 local officials signed a petition condemning Iranian regime's meddling in their country. The declaration also lent support to People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) whose presence in Iraq had acted as a major obstacle to mullahs' fundamentalist ambitions in Iraq.

TEHRAN-(Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it would not back down from its demand for a share of around 20 percent of the Caspian Sea, which boasts huge hydrocarbon reserves and valuable caviar stocks. The leaders of the five Caspian Sea states, including Russia, pledged at a summit in Tehran in October to overcome differences on dividing the sea and its resources but failed to agree on boundaries or a final share. Iran wants all resources shared equally among the five states, even though its coast accounts for less than 14 percent. "Based on this principle (principle of fairness) ... our share would be 20 percent," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference. "In order to reach this share, we have always made an effort and we are not going to retreat from our share," he said. The other littoral states are Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. At stake are estimated oil reserves of as much as 49 billion barrels -- equal to about half that of an OPEC member such as Kuwait -- and reservoirs with 230 trillion cubic feet of gas. The Caspian is also the world's main source of caviar. The October summit did not agree on a new pact to replace agreements on the sea's status dating from the era of the Soviet Union. It said setting up a legal regime for it was "the most important duty" but did not give a timetable for achieving this. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in particular have been quick to extract hydrocarbons, even without a final deal. They have signed bilateral accords with Russia. Iran opposes such deals. Without a comprehensive pact on sharing resources or clear demarcation of boundaries, tensions can grow. Ownership of several big oilfields is hotly contested. Russia has argued for dividing the seabed between the five states but keeping the waters in common use. Some experts say this is so it has more room to manoeuvre its Caspian navy of around 100 ships, far larger than any other coastal state. (Reporting by Hossein Jaseb, writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Peter Blackburn)

HNN

Two weeks ago, the Turkish Air Force launched fifty jets, most of them Lockheed-Martin F-16s, toward targets in the Kandil Mountains of northern Iraq. In the following hours, according to bianet.org, some $20 million was spent for fuel, bombs, and missiles, twelve villages were damaged, and five PKK Kurdish guerrillas were killed along with two civilians. Doing the math, we see that ten F-16s were needed to kill one guerrilla, giving us a cost of $4 million per guerrilla.

Read More

By CHERYL DIAZ MEYER
The Dallas Morning News

Feeling hopeless about life, some women in Iraqi Kurdistan set themselves on fire, then suffer through survival

Video Iraqi Kurdish women face suicide crisis

ERBIL, Iraq – Iman Eaziden Bakr raised her chin, her eyes glistening in the dim light.

"I thought, 'This is my death,' " she said. "I felt like a chicken being roasted. I will never forget the torture of my skin. It was so painful, as if my insides were being exposed."

Her tea had long gone cold as she recounted Jan. 14, the day she poured kerosene on her body and set herself on fire.

Despite the economic boom in Iraqi Kurdistan, Ms. Bakr and her family are among the majority of Kurds who live in poverty. Eight people live together in one room.

"I started feeling hopeless about life, and I couldn't bear their fighting anymore," she said. "So I sacrificed myself for my family. But it was useless."

When she returned home from the hospital, it was worse.

As new social and economic pressures collide with old traditions in the newly prosperous region of northern Iraq, Kurdish women still exert little control over their lives, health experts say. They struggle to describe a mental malaise that women and girls experience in the patriarchal culture, where women see little hope for their future and find themselves driven to kill themselves at unprecedented levels.

Since 2003, an average of one female sets herself on fire each day in Iraqi Kurdistan, according to Khasro Omar, head nurse of the Emergency Management Centre in Erbil. The center is the premier hospital for burn patients in the area.

Ms. Bakr, 17, said she was diagnosed with depression. But her mother refused to buy the prescribed medicine, fearful that people would think their family was crazy.

"Anyone could see that I was not normal," she said. "I heard voices telling me to kill myself, but my mother thought I was just being melodramatic."

Most of the women and girls say they immolated themselves because of unresolved problems with their families. Some had issues in their marriages, while others alleged they were burned by accident as they worked in the kitchen, their long dresses a danger near the flames.

For many of these women, ordinary problems seem magnified. That was the case for 19-year-old Qumri Kaifi.

"I was washing the floor, and my sister kept walking over it, making me upset," she said. After months of strife between her and her new stepmother, this was the final straw. She went into the kitchen and set herself on fire with her 10-year-old sister watching.

Those who survive suffer estrangement from their families and society. Married women who cannot work because of their injuries are often divorced by their husbands. No organizations in the region have long-term programs to help these women.

In the far end of the Erbil ward lies Aveen Bayz, 13, her brow furrowed in pain and her eyes dark and woeful. She resembles a mummy, almost completely covered in gauze to protect her burns, which cover 70 percent of her skin.

Ms. Bayz said she immolated herself because her younger sister was jealous of her and harassed her for not doing the house chores correctly. She has survived eight days after immolating herself. Even the staff won't venture to guess if she will live or die.

Nearby, her anguished mother wipes away tears.

"I would do anything for my daughter, if only she'd stay alive," said Sameera Mohammad. "I wish to hear her voice every morning."

Nine months have passed since Ms. Bakr's attempt to kill herself. She still emanates the acrid smell of burned skin, and her scars itch as they crack open and heal.

"I do feel that they love me," Ms. Bakr said of her family. "But even if I wasn't making good choices – why didn't they stop me? I don't understand their love."

She still sees little promise for the future.

"I gradually feel myself becoming hopeless again," she said. "So, I probably will one day succeed in killing myself."

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered the government to pay one million dinars (830 dollars) to every Kurdish family displaced by Turkish bombings, his office said on Sunday.

"The prime minister has ordered the formation of a committee that will visit these families and pay each of them a million dinars," a statement said, adding that the aid will be given in coordination with the Iraqi Red Crescent.

It did not say how many families have been displaced by the Turkish bombings in northern Iraq's Kurdish region.

In the past few weeks, Turkish warplanes have regularly bombed areas inside Iraq along the border with Turkey in an attempt to flush out rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who have their bases in the region.

The PKK uses the mountainous terrain of northern Iraq to launch attacks against Turkey.

The rebel group has fought for a self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984 but in recent times Ankara has intensified strikes against its groups inside Iraq.

By Sherko Raouf

SANKASAR, Iraq (Reuters) - Since Turkish warplanes turned her village home into a heap of rubble last week, mother of eight Aziya Rasheed says she has lost all hope for the future.

Air strikes on mountain villages around the town of Sankasar in northern Iraq on December 16 destroyed much of Rasheed's modest home as the family slept, injuring her 16-year-old daughter so severely that she had to have her leg amputated above the knee.

"We lost everything, even my daughter's leg. Isn't this terrorism from Turkey?" she said angrily.

"I have no hope of going back to my demolished home, all my livestock are dead and the future of my children is uncertain. How are they going to study here when I'm living in a small room like this?"

The family will have to survive the rest of the bitter winter in a small mud-brick room belonging to relatives in Sankasar, about 160 km (100 miles) north of the city of Sulaimaniya.

The fate of Iraqi civilians caught up in the fight between Turkish forces and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas could effect the delicate balance of security in northern Iraq.

Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops on the Iraqi border and waged a campaign of low-level cross-border strikes on PKK militants for several months, accusing PKK fighters based in Iraq of carrying out deadly attacks in Turkey.

The campaign intensified this month, with air and artillery strikes and small-scale cross-border raids by ground forces.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities describe the PKK as terrorists and say they support Turkey's right to strike back. But they have also expressed concern that civilian casualties could destabilize northern Iraq. Washington has had to tread a delicate path between the interests of its two close allies.

WHERE WERE PKK FIGHTERS?

Turkish forces say they killed more than 150 PKK fighters in the December 16 air strike, their biggest yet.

The mayor of Sankasar, Abdullah Ibrahim, said there were no PKK fighters in the area and the strikes had forced 370 Iraqi Kurdish families to flee their homes in surrounding villages.

"The constant presence of Turkish planes over the villages has deterred everyone from returning because they fear another attack," he said.

Reuters was unable to verify whether PKK fighters were in the area or how much damage was caused to PKK targets.

Iraq protested after the December 16 strike that at least one civilian, a woman, had been killed. The Turkish military denied any civilian targets were hit.

The Iraqi government said on Sunday it would pay 1 million dinars (about $700) to each family displaced by the strikes.

Mohammed Hasan, a 40-year-old father of six whose house was destroyed by Turkish bombing, says he is afraid to return to his village because Turkish planes still fly overhead.

"The bombing began in the middle of the night, I quickly got everyone out of the house and soon after, I looked back at my house and saw it burning," he said, breathing deeply.

"It was destined for us Kurds to face all these tragedies. First Saddam Hussein kept us on the run and now Turkey and Iran take it in turns to bomb us," he added.

Aid from charities and donations from businessmen in Sulaimaniya have provided most needy families with basic food like rice, sugar and tea, and blankets were distributed to help them survive the cold weeks ahead.

Shlier Khudhur, a 30-year-old woman now living with her brother, sobs as she recalls the night she lost her home.

"I was wounded when the house fell on top of us during the air strikes. We have lost everything we ever owned," she said.

"I wish I had died rather than live through this."

(Writing by Mussab Al-Khairalla; editing by Tim Pearce)

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran on Sunday insisted its first nuclear power station would be launched in the summer of 2008, despite statements by the plant's Russian constructors it will not go online until the end of the year. "The Bushehr nuclear power station will launch at a capacity of 50 percent next summer," said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, quoted by the state news agency IRNA. A Russian contractor is finishing the construction of the much-delayed project in the southern city of Bushehr, which finally appears to be nearing completion after a history of delays since work started in the 1970s. Mottaki's comments came after a second consignment of fuel for the Bushehr nuclear plant arrived in Iran from Russia on Friday following the delivery of the first consignment on December 17. But a spokeswoman for the Russian contractor Atomstroiexport said earlier this month that it would take at least a year to start the power station. "We can predict that the Bushehr station will be launched no earlier than the end of 2008 due to the current situation," Irina Yesipova said on December 20. Russia is pressing on with the completion of the station despite Western concerns about Iran's insistence on using uranium enrichment to make its own nuclear fuel for use in future home-built power plants. Western powers fear Iran could use uranium enrichment technology to make a nuclear bomb but Tehran insists it only wants to generate electricity for a growing population whose fossil fuels will eventually run out. Moscow has echoed US calls that Tehran should freeze enrichment in line with UN Security Council demands and said that Iran has no economic need to make its own fuel at the moment. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week Russia was actively seeking to persuade Iran to halt enrichment in return for full negotiations with world powers, including the United States, over its nuclear drive.

Early today 30/12/07 Turkish warplanes violated Iraqi air border through Kurdistan region and to make a reconnaissance over the supposedly PKK bases in the Qandil mountains.

The planes did not bombard any parts of Qandil, but it was the fist flying over the Kurdish areas after the last bombardments four days ago.

The new air assaults came after the Turkish national security council decided Friday to continue attacks on PKK in north of Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki flied to London Saturday evening for medical treatment after a sudden exhaustion he felt in his heart, Iraqi sources said Saturday.

A statement his office issued Sunday said al Maliki felt excessive exhaustion because of the long hours he spend working , but he still was healthy and had nothing dangerous.

Al Iraqiya television also showed prime minister walking by himself towards the plane took him off to London, and looked quite healthy.

The statement also said Physicians had recommended Maliki to take some medical tests before, but he ignored it due to Adha Eid, and now he had found opportunity to take the tests.
Sources said he would take many recommended tests, including heart scan test, but did not confirm how long the tests would take.

The sources added that after the tests he would return to Baghdad.

The New York Times By STEPHEN FARRELL and SOLOMON MOORE Published: December 30, 2007 BAGHDAD — The top American military commander in Iraq said Saturday that violent attacks in the country had fallen by 60 percent since June, but cautioned that security gains were “tenuous” and “fragile,” requiring political and economic progress to cement them. The commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, said the “principal threat” to security remained Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown insurgent group that American intelligence officials say is foreign led. Speaking to reporters in an end-of-year briefing at the American Embassy in Baghdad, General Petraeus said that coalition-force casualties were down “substantially,” and that civilian casualties had fallen “dramatically.” “The level of attacks for about the last 11 weeks or so has been one not seen consistently since the late spring and summer of 2005,” he said. “The number of high-profile attacks, that is car bombs, suicide car bombs and suicide vest attacks, is also down, also roughly 60 percent” since their height in March. During his 100-minute briefing, General Petraeus used a series of charts showing trends in overall weekly and monthly attacks, car and suicide bombs, weapons-cache finds and Iraqi civilian deaths. Although the data showed a sharp fall in civilian deaths from their peak between mid-2006 and mid-2007, the rate of decline appeared to level off in the past two months. The figures were based on American military statistics, but included some joint Iraqi-coalition data. However, he conceded that while attacks were down in the rest of the country, they had not fallen in the northern province of Nineveh, which includes Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, with a population of 1.7 million. He said Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia remained active in northern Iraq, where it has been pushed since major offensive operations in Baghdad and Anbar Province, and that the rate of attacks in Nineveh “has just been variable and probably slightly up.” One reason for the continuing violence, he said, was that the area remained “very important” to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia because it is crossed by the routes into Iraq from Syria and Turkey. Also on Saturday, Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, flew to Britain for unspecified medical treatment. Yassin Majeed, a senior aide to Mr. Maliki, said only that the visit was for “routine” tests. Iraqiya, the state television channel, showed Mr. Maliki boarding a jet at Baghdad International Airport. “Some time ago I tried to carry out these tests to be sure about some health matters,” he told reporters. “Now I have the chance.” Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told reporters in a separate briefing on Saturday that 75 percent of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s networks and safe havens had been destroyed. He said that 18,000 people had been killed by violence so far in 2007, and that insurgent attacks had declined from 25 a day in February in Baghdad to as few as one during some days in December. The general did not elaborate on the methodology used to determine any of the statistics he reported to the news media. General Khalaf said the turning point was the rise of the so-called Sunni Awakening Councils in Anbar Province, the insurgents’ former stronghold. He said that once the tribal groups turned against the militants there, the Interior Ministry was able to focus on Baghdad. The general acknowledged, however, that Diyala Province had remained difficult to control because of continuing insurgent attacks. “That’s the coming fight,” he said of Diyala and other troublesome areas north of Baghdad. General Petraeus acknowledged that while Iraq had been brought back from “the brink of a civil war” in 2007, Iraqi and American commanders “clearly have more work to do in certain areas in the weeks and months ahead.” General Petraeus identified numerous reasons for the fall in violence, namely the increase in American troops and the decision to move them to smaller bases where they are “living among those we are trying to protect.” He cited aggressive offensive operations, using a mixture of conventional and special forces, to focus on the insurgents’ strongholds and networks. He also credited the Iraqis’ own “surge” of more than 100,000 soldiers and police officers, the rejection of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia by the Sunni awakening movement in former insurgent strongholds, and the cease-fire by the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, although he said some “splinter elements” continued to operate. The general said outside factors included the decisions by some countries to curb the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, singling out Syria. Regarding Iran, he noted a fall in attacks using what he described as Iranian-provided “signature weapons”: RPG 29 rocket-propelled grenades, the sophisticated roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, large-caliber rockets and portable air-defense systems. He said he hoped Iran “will live up to the promises its senior leaders made to Iraq’s senior leaders” to stop what the Americans claim are the training, financing, arming and directing of “special groups” within Shiite militias that have attacked coalition forces. Iran has consistently denied helping militias attack coalition forces in Iraq. For his part, General Khalaf said that Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which he conceded had been infiltrated by Shiite militias in the past, was gradually integrating more Sunni Arabs into its ranks and weeding out officers believed to have dubious allegiances. In an audiotape released Saturday, Osama bin Laden urged Iraq’s Sunni Arabs not to join the Awakening Councils. “Our duty is to foil these dangerous schemes, which try to prevent the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq, which would be a wall of resistance against American schemes to divide Iraq,” Mr. bin Laden said in the 56-minute tape, which was posted on a militant Web site used by Al Qaeda’s media arm, The Associated Press said.

By MICHAEL KAMBER
The New York Times

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq — The tiny Filipino woman’s hands trembled. She was in hiding, fearing capture at any moment.

She and a friend had come to Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish north as guest workers six months earlier. Now they worried they would be forcibly returned to Erbil, where they had been locked in a house for a month and made to work for free, they said, after their passports, cellphones and plane tickets were taken away.

The two had escaped by begging their captor to let them attend church, then making contact with other Filipino workers, who spirited them away.

Thousands of foreign workers have come to the Kurdish districts in the last three years, a huge turnaround for a place that had hardly any before, making it one of the fastest-growing Middle Eastern destinations for the world’s impoverished. They come from Ethiopia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Somalia, supporting an economic boom here that is transforming Kurdish society.

Read More

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday urged Iranians to be alert against enemy plots ahead of legislative elections next March, in statements broadcast on state television. "The Iranian nation has to be alert" ahead of the polls, Khamenei told visitors in remarks made on the occasion of the Eid al-Qadir feast which commemorates the Prophet Mohammed's last sermon. Khamenei described the March elections as a major test of wills for the Iranian people. "The enemy may benefit from any negligence and hurt us," he warned. Allies of pragmatic ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his reformist successor Mohammad Khatami are expected to team up in the March 14 elections against hardliners loyal to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The coalition comes amid harsh criticism of Ahmadinejad's foreign policies, including his refusal to make concessions in Iran's nuclear standoff with the West. Khamenei also urged unity among Muslims against so-called "enemies" including the United States. "Today the world arrogance wants with utmost treachery... to inject the virus of disagreement among the different parts of the Islamic body," he said in reference to Washington. "Today the Islamic factions should not target one another... There should be no disagreement" among Muslims, Khamenei said. Eid al-Qadir is celebrated mainly by Shiites, who regard the Prophet Mohammed's final sermon as confirmation that Imam Ali was to succeed him.

Turkish warplanes will continue attacking PKK bases northern Iraq if it was necessary, Turkish national security council said Friday.

In a session lasted 5 hours, Turkish national security council which include Senior civil and military officials, agreed that the “successful” military operations on PKK would continue if it was needed.

The council also welcomed the outcomes of the operations carried out in northern Iraq so far, where no civilian areas got damages.

Meantime, Turkish government claimed it would hand 10 spying planes from Israel next week.

Analysts expect that Turkish government will use those planes to figure out the hide outs of PKK bases northern Iraq, in order to stage new attacks on the Kurdish region any time it wanted.

A staff of Israel air defence industries operates the unmanned planes used in the Turkish attacks on PKK bases northern Iraq, Turkish daily news said.

10 days ago, Turkish Star television had reported over the usage of Harwn unmanned crafts, which are Israeli made.

The Turkish website reported from the Israeli Media sources as saying, the Kurdish people in Iraq did not accepted such Israel cooperation with Turkey as normal.

Israeli Haarts newspaper reported from the Turkish forces saying, General Commander Yashar Buyukanit was watching the unmanned planes reconnaissance on PKK bases northern Iraq.

Israel is also expected to by Turkey 10 other planes in the coming weeks to use them against the Kurdish party.

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29 – Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence for a 17-year-old schoolboy over the murder of his younger friend.

The teenager identified only by his first name Ali was originally sentenced to execution by a court in Tehran on 23 July 2007, the government-owned news agency Fars reported on Saturday.

He had been found guilty of convincing his eight-year-old friend Ahmad to have sex with him, and later murdering him in December 2005. Ali purportedly decided to kill Ahmad out of fear upon discovering that Ahmad had started to bleed. The report said that Ali had confessed to strangling Ahmad.

Ali faces imminent execution, following the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the death sentence.

Under Iranian law, girls above the age of nine and boys above the age of fifteen are considered as adults and could be executed for capital offences.

The Daily Telegraph

By Russell Hotten, Industry Editor

Royal Dutch Shell has again delayed a decision on whether to press ahead with controversial investments in Iran, as Europe's largest oil and gas company weighs up the increasing costs of the project and political opposition in the United States.

The Anglo-Dutch giant will not now decide on a $10bn (£4.9bn) project to exploit part of Iran's vast South Pars gas field for at least a year. Shell risks seeing rivals also knocking on Teheran's door being given first refusal on some of the many lucrative contracts instead.

Teheran has requested that companies interested in South Pars and other energy projects submit plans by June, although some analysts believe the deadline may be extended.

In January, Shell and Spain's Repsol signed a preliminary deal with Teheran jointly to develop two phases of South Pars. At the time, Shell said it might be a year away from knowing whether to proceed, a timescale that Shell chief executive Jeroen van de Veer repeated six months later.

Now, company insiders say Shell is "still 12 months away from a decision". Drawing up a final investment plan, when labour and equipment costs in the industry are soaring, was proving more difficult than expected, said a source.

Shell also risks upsetting Washington, where the Bush administration is putting pressure on companies not to do business with Iran because of its nuclear programme. Pushing back the decision until the end of 2008 has the advantage of it being after the US elections in November, when a new president might tone down the rhetoric against Teheran.

But analysts said it would be wrong to think that Iran's June deadline was not a firm commitment. On December 9, Gholam Hossein Nozari, Iran's oil minister, warned companies that they risked missing out on contracts.

"If other companies that like to invest in oil and gas hesitate, they will lose opportunities," he said.

The comment followed the signing of a $2bn contract between Iran and Sinopec of China to develop the Yadavaran oil field. Russia's Gazprom is understood to be holding talks with Teheran about investing in South Pars and is unlikely to be influenced by any complaints from Washington.

Iran has the world's second largest reserves of gas and oil, but needs outside investment and technology to tamp them. South Pars is thought to be the world's biggest gas field.

A spokesman for Shell said a final decision was still "some way away, perhaps a year", because issues such as construction costs and the falling dollar were impacting on costing the project. He said any political considerations would be taken into account.

Reporters Without Borders is extremely worried about the health of journalist and human rights activist Emadoldin Baghi, who was rushed to hospital after suffering a double heart attack in Tehran’s Evin prison on 26 December and was returned to a general wing of the prison yesterday evening. He has been held in Evin for the past 74 days.

“The conditions in which Baghi is being held are unacceptable,” the press freedom organisation said. “He has been in solitary confinement ever since he was first taken to Evin, as if imprisonment was not already enough punishment. As his state of health has worsened steadily during the past two months, it is inconceivable that he should be expected to convalesce in prison.”

Baghi was rushed to Tehran’s Khamar Bani Hachem after his double heart attack. His lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, and his family were finally able to visit him yesterday after spending 24 hours without any news of him. When he was taken back to Evin, he was put in a new cell in section 350 of the prison.

Nikbakht told Reporters Without Borders that the deterioration in Baghi’s health was mainly due to the appalling conditions in the prison and to the harassment to which he has been subjected during interrogation sessions. “Emadoldin Baghi will not survive another heart attack,” he said.

An active campaigner against Iran’s death penalty, Baghi was awarded the French government’s human rights prize in 2005. He was sentenced in 2000 to three years in prison for “violating to national security.”

Meanwhile, Ejlal Ghavami, a reporter for the weekly Payam-e Mardom-e Kurdestan who has been held in the prison of Sanandaj since 9 July, was finally given 10 days leave from the prison on 26 December for treatment to an eye infection that has worsened since his arrest.

Iran’s Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are both on the Reporters Without Borders list of “press freedom predators.” Twelve journalists are currently detained in Iran.

Turkish operation on kurdish PKK make younger kurdish boys and girls to  join PKK.

turkish dont have problem only with PKK perhaps they have problem with 40M kurdish.

the united state help turkish government to genoside kurdish in northen iraq or any where.

United state give green light to turkish government to genoside kurdish in kurdistan and VOA News everydays say we bring democracy to middle east but we dont know what they mean about democracy.

if PKK is terrorism must say 18M kurdish terrorism in northern kurdistan(turkish kurdistan).

Abdulla ocalan is a timid leader in tureky because when the us,israiel and turkish arrested him he said in first interview all my family is turkish and no kurdish he is not successful leader for PKK and 18M kurdish in turkey.

abdulla ocalan is a foolish leader for PKK and kurdish leader in iraq best slave for united state in iraqi kurdistan.

from 21/10/2007 turkish govrenment said more then 300 pkk killed in northen iraq and its falsely news because if its correct why turkish not stop PKK in 23 years (1984).

the fascist govrenment turkey want again genoside on kurdish like armenian in 1915 and we must  support PKK to send turkish army to hell verey soon.

partizani war verey important and all we know  PKK win war and the turkish govrenment must give autonomy to kurdish in tureky.

For the third time in a row, the Kurdish-Georgian Zalimkhan Motsoyov was elected as a member of the Russian Duma (parliament) to the consolidated list of Russia party in the recent elections, which were held in Russia and the United Russia Party (Putin's Party) won majority of seats.

Motsoyov, a Georgian Kurd, was born in 1959 in the town of Tiblis. He graduated from Volgograd University-Architecture Department. He has a factory for the manufacture of pipes to transport crude oil and gas, which is one of the great factories in the Ural region of Russia.

It is noteworthy that Motsoyov elected in the previous two sessions of the Russian elections (1999, 2003) as an independent member of the State Duma, and then he joined Putin’s party (United Russia Party).

On this occasion, the representative of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Moscow, Shorsh Khalid congratulated him and wished him all success.

In a meeting, PUK representative asked Zalimkhan to play great roles in strengthening the relations between Russia and Kurdistan Region.

For his part, Motsoyov announced his readiness to work on the development of relations between Russia and Kurdistan Region. He pointed out that he would visit Kurdistan region soon.

His Excellency President Jalal Talabani received Iranian Ambassador to Iraq, Mr. Kazemi Qumi on Friday, at his residence in the city of Sulaimani.
At the meeting, President Talabani discussed with Iranian Ambassador the ways to enhance bilateral relations between the two countries.

At a press conference, held after the meeting, President Talabani said, “As you know we have strong relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and today we focused on the theme of the bilateral relations between the Islamic Republic and the Republic of Iraq and the implementation of previous agreements, especially those related to the Shatt al-Arab, border issues and the Iranian-American relations.”

On certain statements relating to the Algeries Convention, His Excellency said, “These statements were not copied accurately, I made it clear. Because we opposed the dictatorship, we opposed this convention as a convention between torturers Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein. But the situation changed when Iran was liberated and the Islamic Republic of Iran, friendly to our people, came and Iraq liberated from dictatorship and the Republic of Iraq, friendly to Iran, came.

He also added, “Situations have changed now, in my view and according to the international laws and norms, this Convention is permanent and applicable. If there are comments between the two sides, they should be discussed between the two countries friendly, and one side cannot abolish it unilaterally.”

President Talabani explained, “I am not a supporters of the abolition of the Convention, but I am an advocate for strengthening relations between the Islamic Republic and the Republic of Iraq and I believe that we have many common interests. Iraq and the Islamic Republic should think of a long-term strategic Convention includes all the issues mentioned in the previous agreements.”

On his efforts to release the Iranian detainees to the American forces said President Talabani, “We will continue our efforts to release those arrested and we have received some promises. We hope that these promises come true and the Iranian detainees be released.”

On reactions of the Iraqi parties to signing of the memorandum of understanding between the two Kurdish parties and the Iraqi Islamic Party, President Talabani stressed the importance of this memo, saying, “The draft of the memorandum of understanding was circulated for almost a year. We wanted to establish relations with the Iraqi Islamic Party in order to prove that our glorious historic relation with the Shiite parties is not hostile to the Sunnis in Iraq.”

He also pointed out, “We and our allies in the Shiite parties are not advocates of isolating the Sunnis, but we wanted to attract supporters from the Sunni Arabs. When the quadripartite agreement was signed, we tried to convince the Iraqi Islamic Party to be the fifth party to join the Quartet Convention.”

President Talabani stressed that he trusts Mr. Nuri al-Maliki, a man he considered appropriate for prime minister at this stage, saying: If I have any remarks, suggestions and ideas, I discuss them amicably with my brother and friend Mr. Nouri Al-Maliki before I announce them.”

President Talabani related the failure of the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution to several objective reasons, stressing that: Mr. al-Maliki announced that he always supported the implementation of Article 140 according to the Constitution.

Benazir Bhutto, along with several dozen others, was assassinated in a gun, bomb attack in Rawalpindi, Pakistan yesterday. This was the second assignation attempt on her life in the past several months, where in the first instance well over a hundred were killed.

  

Benazir, a Harvard-Oxford educated aristocratic elite, who had served twice as the first woman prime minister in an Islamic state, was the eldest child of the former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Pakistani of Sindhi descent, and Begum Nusrat Bhutto, a Pakistani of Iranian-Kurdish descent. Her father also lost his life after a bitter political battle in Pakistan.

 

The unfortunate bloodshed necessitates the prompt realignment of the U.S. And allied resources away from the Lebanon-Israel or the Persian Gulf corridors to "ground zero" Pakistan where the terrorist forces are born, bred, and tolerated by the collusion of the government there.

The growing volatile circumstances in Pakistan will once again confirm the far overdue, nonetheless, meritorious and urgent need to rethink our strategy in the region as a whole. Our foreign policy in the region must, therefore, be realigned to a factual, on the ground Reality check, rather than manipulating reality in Washington to fit the agenda by special or lobbying entities. Such fundamental policy rethinking requires a bold leadership in Washington which does not any longer envisage problems in the so-called [Middle East] as a Palestinian-Arab-Israeli, Shiite-Sunni, Persian-Arab, Kurdish-Turkish, Christian-Moslem, or Pakistan-Afghanistan conflicts, but rather a people-to people predicament that can only be resolved through the ultimate home-grown empowerment of the masses anchored on education, socio-economic equity, and political parity.

In such equation, Iran or its alleged proxies in Iraq or Lebanon can not any longer be deemed as the culprits, but rather Iran should be brought to the table of negotiation as equal respectable partners. Such critical engagement will not only contribute to the regional stability but that in the long run should serve the ultimate aspiration of Iranian people for true independence, freedom and democracy. As paradoxical as it may seem, this is the only dire hope of re-establishing the U.S. Credibility and regaining our respect worldwide.

www.payvand.com/news/07/dec/1265.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has no plans to sell its advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, a Russian government agency said on Friday. "The issue of supplying Iran with S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems, raised by mass media, is not on the agenda, is not being considered and is not being discussed with the Iranian side at the moment," Russia's Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service said on its Web site. Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said on Wednesday Russia had agreed to sell the system to Iran. "The S-300 system, under a contract signed in the past with Russia, will be delivered to Iran," Najjar told Fars News Agency, without giving details. "The timing of the delivery ... will be announced later," he added. S-300 missiles are longer-ranging than the TOR-M1 surface-to-air missiles which Russia, in a deal criticized by the West, earlier this year said it had delivered to the Islamic Republic under a $1 billion contract. The United States and Israel -- Tehran's arch foes -- have said Iran could use the Tor-M1 system to attack its neighbors. Russia says the short-range system is purely defensive. Iran is under U.N. sanctions over its refusal to halt sensitive atomic work that Western powers suspect it wants to master so that it can build nuclear bombs, but they do not ban conventional weapons sales to the Islamic Republic. "Russia and Iran continue their civilized relationship in the sphere of military and technical cooperation, respecting in full regulations of international export legislation and (their) international obligations," the Russian federal agency said. It gave no further detail. (Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Mary Gabriel)

TEHRAN (AFP) — Russia has delivered a second consignment of nuclear fuel to Iran's Bushehr power plant, the official news agency IRNA quoted the deputy head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation as saying on Friday. "The second consignment of fuel for the Bushehr nuclear plant arrived in Iran on Friday," Ahmad Fayazbaksh said, adding that the delivery was the same amount supplied in the first consignment on December 17. Russia will deliver a total of 82 tonnes of nuclear fuel to Iran over two months in eight separate consignments. On December 20 a spokeswoman for the Russian contractor on the flagship project, Atomstroiexport, confirmed that it would take at least a year to start the power station. "We can predict that the Bushehr station will be launched no earlier than the end of 2008 due to the current situation," Irina Yesipova told AFP. Iran had said it hoped the 1,000-megawatt plant in the southern city of Bushehr could come on line within three months at up to 200 megawatts before being cranked up to full capacity nine months later. "Six months after the end of deliveries of fuel we will start tests with the fuel. When the tests are successfully completed we can launch the station. I can't say how long the tests will last," Yesipova said. "A deviation from the schedule risks having a negative effect on the security of the power station," she added. Russia began sensitive deliveries of nuclear fuel to Bushehr after repeated hold-ups and an earlier call by the United States for the project to be suspended. After Moscow announced fuel deliveries had begun, US President George W. Bush said this meant Tehran had no need to carry out its own nuclear fuel enrichment. But the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, insisted Tehran still wanted to enrich uranium on Iranian soil to produce nuclear fuel. Bushehr lies at the centre of Iran's controversial ambitions to create its own nuclear power infrastructure. The United States and Israel have voiced fears that Iran's civilian nuclear power programme could be a cover for a programme to develop atomic weapons, a charge denied by Tehran.

By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS/BEIRUT
Time.com
 
In 1995, the Turkish army invaded northern Iraq, sending some 35,000 soldiers across the border to destroy the guerilla infrastructure of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) a militant group made up of Turkish Kurds that had found refuge in the lawless mountain region. Operation Steel, as it was called, killed over 500 militants, but still the PKK survived to fight another day. In early 1997, the Turks sent in another 30,000 soldiers — this time as part of Operation Hammer — to finish the job. They didn't. The Turks had to go in again later that year with Operation Dawn.

This month the Turks launched yet another operation against the PKK, and there is little to suggest that it will be any more effective than the others. So far 300 Turkish commandoes crossed briefly into Iraq, while Turkey has staged three air strikes, including one Wednesday. Turkey claims to have attacked some 200 PKK locations, and killed hundreds of militants. A PKK fighter told TIME that just five of the group's members had been killed. Whatever the true figure, the operation would seem to be a minor chapter in Turkey's seemingly never-ending civil war with radicals among its oppressed Kurdish minority population, who took up arms in the 1980's.

This time however there are some important differences. Turkey isn't invading the lawless hinterland of a pariah nation (Saddam's Iraq) but a region that not too long ago was considered the one relative success of the American project in Iraq. The United States — which controls Iraqi airspace — tried to forestall a Turkish invasion, but eventually caved into Turkish demands and agreed to a limited incursion. The fact that Turkey was ready to risk alienating its American ally for an operation with little chance of strategic success is a testament to the uproar by the Turkish public for action against the PKK. But it is also a troubling sign of the role that Turkey will play in Iraq as American power recedes.

Turkey has long been hostile to the emerging power of Iraq's Kurdish minority, located primarily in northern Iraq. Concerned that Kurds might take control of the oil rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk, Turkey inserted itself into Iraq's domestic political problems by dubiously claiming stewardship of Kirkuk's minority Turkoman population (with whom ethnic Turks share a distant Central Asian past and little else.) More recently, Turkey has demanded that Iraq's Kurds rid northern Iraq of the PKK, a job that the government-sanctioned Kurdish peshmerga militias are unable to do. The peshmerga are currently overstretched in Baghdad and Mosul trying to keep Arab insurgents from entering Kurdistan. (Iraqi Kurds tried to expel the PKK in the 1990's, but, like the Turkish army, they failed.)

Now, Iraqi Kurdish leaders say that Turkey's unwillingness to open peace talks with the PKK, and its adherence to failed military policies, is a sign that Turkey is using the PKK as excuse to threaten Iraq's Kurds — and to scare them from even thinking about declaring an independent state. Whatever Turkey's intentions, the latest Turkish operation has reminded the Kurds of Iraq just how much their newfound safety and autonomy depends on American protection.

Kurdish leaders in Iraq have been relatively subdued since the Turkish operations began, acquiescing perhaps to the fickle will of their American masters. They know better than anyone that, without American protection, it's doubtful their hostile neighbors — not just Turkey, but also Iran and Syria, which have restive Kurdish minority populations of their own — would limit themselves to a few air strikes.

ANKARA (AFP)--Turkey's Constitutional Court Thursday rejected prosecution demands to impose restrictions on the main Kurdish party while it is hearing a case against it for alleged links with separatist rebels, Anatolia news agency reported.

The court said there was no reason to bar the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, from contesting elections or prevent its members from running on the ticket of other parties or as independents, Anatolia reported.

The court also rejected demands to block any treasury assistance the party could be entitled to and to stop the recruitment of new members, it said.

The DTP welcomed the ruling, but didn't see it as any indication that the case, which is seeking to close the party down, would go in its favor.

"It is a positive decision, even though it does not constitute any signal on the essence of the case," senior DTP deputy Selahattin Demirtas told AFP.

"The prosecution demands were unlawful and the court did what the law requires," he said.

The restriction requests were part of a charge sheet that Turkey's chief prosecutor submitted to the Constitutional Court in November.

The prosecutor wants the DTP to be outlawed, arguing it has become "a hive of activity" targeting national unity through its links with the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which Ankara lists as a terrorist group.

The case is expected to take at least six months.

The DTP, which holds 20 seats in the 550-member parliament, denies links with the PKK. Its members, however, have come under fire for refusing to brand the group a terrorist organisation and often voicing sympathy for the rebels.

Party Chairman Nurettin Demirtas, who has served time in prison for belonging to the PKK, was arrested this month on charges of using a false medical report to evade compulsory military service.

The legal assault on the DTP comes amid Turkish bombing raids on PKK targets in neighboring northern Iraq since Dec. 16, prompted by increased rebel violence this year.

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has died following a suicide bomb attack today at a rally, a party aide has confirmed.

"At 6:16 p.m. she expired,'' Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto's party, told The Associated Press.

Khan made the comments from Rawalpindi General Hospital, where Bhutto was taken.

Another senior military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Bhutto had died.

CNN said she was reportedly shot in the neck at a rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on Thursday.

There are also reports that a suicide blast at the rally killed at least 20 people.

Background on Bhutto

Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, served as a president and prime minister of Pakistan in the 1970s. He founded the Pakistan People's Party, the group Benazir had currently been leading, and is credited as being the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

Bhutto lost power in a 1977 coup to Gen. Zia Ul-Haq, then the chief of the army staff whom Bhutto had appointed. Bhutto was executed in 1979 for allegedly ordering the murder of a political opponent. Observers criticized his trial as a very shoddy affair.

Benazir spent most of the next five years in prison. She left for London in 1984. Her brother Shahnawaz was found dead in his French Riviera apartment in 1985.

In 1986, Benazir Bhutto, educated at Harvard and Oxford, returned to Pakistan. Two years later, Zia died in a mysterious plane crash. Bhutto's party won a majority in parliamentary elections that November, and she became prime minister at age 35.

By 1990, President Gulam Ishaq Khan had dismissed her government on charges of corruption -- charges Bhutto denied.

Khan replaced her with Nawaz Sharif -- a protégé of Zia.

Three years later, Bhutto won the prime ministership once again. In this period, she would support the Taliban of Afghanistan.

Her government would be dismissed again on corruption allegations in 1996. That same year, her brother Murtaza, also politically active, was shot to death under murky circumstances.

Facing corruption charges she claimed were politically motivated, Bhutto left Pakistan in 1999, the same year Musharraf deposed Sharif. Musharraf wouldn't assume the presidency until 2001.

Through political wrangling, he had his 1999 coup retroactively legitimized.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October to campaign ahead of elections next month.
news agency

CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) — The White House expressed concern Wednesday over Iran's announcement that Russia would supply S-300 air missile defense systems to the Islamic republic. "We have ongoing concerns about the prospective sale of such weapons to Iran and other countries of concern," Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman, said from Crawford, Texas, where President George W. Bush was spending the yearend holiday on his ranch. Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar announced Wednesday that Russia would deliver the system, but said the date for the delivery would be unveiled later. Moscow has not confirmed the sale. The announcement came as Washington is seeking to impose new United Nations sanctions on Iran over its refusal to halt its nuclear program, which the United States fears could be used to build an atomic bomb. Earlier this year Moscow frustrated Washington by delivering to Tehran 29 TOR-M1 air defense missile systems, in a deal estimated to be worth 700 million dollars. Iranian state media touted the S-300 as an even more sophisticated system than the TOR-M1, saying it could hit incoming enemy targets at a greater altitude. Iran said in January it had successfully test fired the TOR-M1. The United States had urged Russia to cancel that sale, saying it was a mistake when the UN Security Council had imposed sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile industry as part of measures against its nuclear drive.

The New York Times

By NAZILA FATHI
Published: December 27, 2007

TEHRAN — A prominent human rights activist who has been jailed since October was transferred to a hospital Wednesday, according to his wife and the news agency ISNA.

The man, Emadedin Baghi, a reformist journalist who is in jail for the second time, was taken from the notorious Evin prison to a hospital in Tehran. His wife, Fatimeh Kamali, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that her husband had called her in the morning from prison and sounded as if he was barely conscious.

She said he could barely speak and kept repeating himself, but she was able to understand that he said he would have died had a prison official not recently found him. He also asked for his lawyer.

ISNA quoted the general director of prisons in Tehran Province, Sohrab Soleimani, as saying that Mr. Baghi was taken to a hospital but was expected to return to prison Wednesday evening. He did not provide any further information.

Mr. Baghi’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, had traveled to the prison to meet with him in the morning before the phone call but was turned away by prison officials who said Mr. Baghi was being interrogated, Ms. Kamali said.

After the phone call, Ms. Kamali said she and Mr. Nikbakht rushed to the prison, where they saw an ambulance go in and quickly leave.

Although she and Mr. Nikbakht spent the rest of the day trying to get permission from judiciary officials to see Mr. Baghi, they never got approval, Ms. Kamali said.

Mr. Baghi was jailed in October, when he was summoned to appear before a court to answer accusations related to a nongovernmental organization he founded to fight for prisoner rights, his Web site says.

Prior to the October court date, he had received a one-year jail term for a speech he made in 2004 and a three-year suspended sentence on charges of acting against national security.

Mr. Baghi was in jail from 2000 to 2003 for making allegations about the role government officials played in the assassination of intellectuals in the late 1990s.

Ms. Kamali said Wednesday that prison officials had promised that her husband would call her back Wednesday, but she said he had not called as of late Wednesday evening.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish forces, backed by helicopter gunships, launched fresh operations against Kurdish separatist rebels in southeastern Turkey on Thursday, military sources said.

They said the army also sent thousands of soldiers to reinforce troops in the Sirnak, Hakkari and Tunceli provinces near the Iraqi border, where guerrillas from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have been attacking security forces and troops.

There were no reports of new cross-border raids after Turkish warplanes bombed PKK positions in northern Iraq on Wednesday.

Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops, backed by warplanes, artillery and tanks, near its border with Iraq.

The Turkish government authorised the military last month to launch cross-border operations following what it said were insufficient steps by Iraqi authorities against PKK rebels, who take shelter in northern Iraq and mount attacks inside Turkey.

On Wednesday, the General Staff said that its forces had killed 11 PKK guerrillas this week in clashes in the restive Sirnak province.

Ankara blames the PKK, which is fighting for a separate Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people since it began an armed struggle in 1984.

Turkey says 3,000 PKK rebels are based in northern Iraq.

Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organisation.

(Writing by Selcuk Gokoluk; editing by Sami Aboudi)

The Pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) has claimed that the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is a "political organization that seeks solution to the Kurdish problem."

In a written statement released yesterday following its party council meeting on Tuesday, the DTP said: “Because it has a mindset that imagines a cross-border operation can solve Turkey’s problems, Turkey refuses to recognize the demands of its Kurdish citizens and the representatives they have selected with their free will. The demand that the PKK be recognized as a terrorist organization is an extension of this mindset.”
The DTP party council convened to discuss recent cross-border operations launched into northern Iraq by the Turkish military, the detention of the party's leader, Nurettin Demirtaş, recent political developments in Turkey, upcoming municipal elections and a court case opened to close the DTP, reported the state-run Anatolia news agency.

In the statement, DTP officials asserted that the PKK terrorist organization is a political organization that seeks the resolution of the Kurdish problem and noted: "The Kurdish problem should be analyzed properly and the PKK should be handled separately from this problem." The statement also recommended "democratic autonomy," a project that was formerly put forward by the DTP that the party claimed would help solve the Kurdish problem through judicial and constitutional arrangements.

"Residents of northern Iraq, especially women and children, are concerned about recent cross-border operations. As Turkey prefers to launch cross-border offensives instead of democratic initiatives and political solutions, hopes for peace and dialogue have been adjourned until later dates," read the statement.

DTP officials also noted in the statement that they are conducting studies to defend their party from a court case opened against it. The chief prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals opened a court case in November against the DTP at the Constitutional Court, claiming that the party is in conflict with the independence of the Turkish state and the indivisible integrity of its territory.

The statement also said that the DTP will begin the necessary preparations to get ready for upcoming municipal elections.

Today's Zaman

MONTREAL (AFP) — Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay identified Iran as the origin of weapons used by rebels against the international coalition in Afghanistan. "We have asked the Iranians to deal with the problem because it is very hard to cut the supply lines when you have, in another country, people who are providing the arms for use against Canadian forces and others" in the 39-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, he said. Speaking during a visit to the military base at Kandahar broadcast on Radio-Canada television, MacKay said Canada was particularly concerned about improvised explosive devices from Iran which have fallen into the hands of Taliban rebel forces. Most of the 73 Canadian soldiers who have died in Afghanistan since 2002 were killed by such explosives. MacKay, accompanied by Canadian Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier, made a surprise visit to Kandahar Tuesday to celebrate the Christmas holiday with some of the 2,500 Canadian troops in the country. Relations between Ottawa and Tehran, in a poor state ever since the death in 2003 of Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi while in detention in Iran, worsened with the expulsion of the Canadian ambassador to Tehran in early December. Shortly after MacKay's press conference, rockets were fired toward the military base but caused no damage, Radio-Canada reported. Two rockets were fired toward the base during MacKay's last visit to Afghanistan on November 6.

ANKARA (AFP) - Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel targets along the Turkish border in northern Iraq Wednesday, the military said, confirming Kurdish reports of a fresh air strike.

The raid was undertaken after "it was determined that a large group of terrorists, who have been watched for a long time, are preparing to pass the winter in eight caves and hideouts in the Zap region", the Turkish general staff said in a statement on its website.

"Our warplanes hit the targets in an effective air raid that started in the morning hours of December 26," it said.

The statement did not mention casualties.

It was the third air strike on Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) targets that the Turkish army has confirmed since December 16, in addition to a ground cross-border operation.

Officials in northern Iraq have reported two other air strikes, including one on Tuesday.

"The success achieved in the operations is a clear indication that seasonal conditions, visibility and the nature of the terrain cannot be a hurdle in the Turkish armed forces' struggle against terrorism," the statement said.

The military said Tuesday that at least 150 PKK rebels were killed on December 16 in the largest air strike in northern Iraq so far, when fighter jets bombed positions along the Turkish border and in the Qandil mountains to the east, where the PKK is known to have camps.

It said the strike destroyed more than 200 PKK targets, including command, training and logistical bases as well as anti-aircraft defence positions and ammunition depots.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, has waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

The PKK has long enjoyed safe haven in Kurdish-run northern Iraq, using camps there as a springboard for attacks across the border on Turkish targets.

falsely news

By C. ONUR ANT
Associated Press Writer

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkish airstrikes and artillery have hit more than 200 Kurdish rebel targets in the mountains of northern Iraq since Dec. 16, killing hundreds of insurgents, the military said Tuesday.

Up to 175 rebels were killed on Dec. 16 alone, the military said in a statement posted on its Web site. The military said other hideouts were hit in a cross-border airstrike on Saturday, followed by artillery fire.

In Iraq, a Kurdish official said information from the rebels cast doubt on Turkey's claims.

"These are exaggerated figures," said Mahmoud Uthman, a Kurdish leader and member of parliament. "Most of the villages (that were attacked) were abandoned."

Iraqi officials said the Dec. 16 operation — the first confirmed by Turkey since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 — violated Iraqi sovereignty. That operation was followed by an incursion by ground forces, who spotted a group of Kurdish rebels preparing to cross into Turkey.

The last confirmed offensive across the Turkish-Iraqi border came this past Saturday, when Turkish airplanes entered Iraqi air space and bombed suspected rebel targets.

A spokesman for Iraqi Kurdistan's Peshmerga security forces said earlier that Turkish fighter jets also bombed Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq on Sunday.

But a U.S. official in Ankara said Tuesday that there was no evidence of a Sunday air assault. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

In an earlier statement, the military said it was hard to determine precisely how many rebels died in recent attacks but put the figure in the hundreds.

Officials in Iraq have claimed civilians were killed in the attacks, but the Turkish statement said any reports of civilian casualties were a fabrication and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said civilians were not targeted.

"Air operations or ground operations — we will do whatever necessary within the limits of what international law allows us to do," Erdogan told legislators from his ruling party on Tuesday. "Civilians have never been our targets."

The U.S. has been providing intelligence to Turkey on the Kurdish rebels since a Nov. 5 meeting between Erdogan and President Bush, who said the rebel group was an enemy of the U.S., Turkey and Iraq.

A coordination center has been set up in Ankara so Turks, Iraqis and Americans can share information. The Dec. 16 airstrike was due to intelligence shared by Washington.

"The Kurdish leaders ... feel betrayed by the Americans," Uthman said. "There are discussions now with the American side to try to halt these operations. The Americans are the only ones who can halt them," Uthman said.

The rebel group Kurdistan Workers' Party, also known as PKK, has waged a war for autonomy in parts of Turkey near Syria, Iraq and Iran since 1984. The fighting has cost tens of thousands of lives. The U.S., the European Union and Turkey consider the PKK a terrorist organization.

Turkey has said it would not tolerate more PKK attacks, after a string of deadly ambushes killed dozens of troops in the past months. In October, the Parliament allowed the government to send troops into Iraq to hit rebel bases there.

The Cabinet then authorized the military to hit rebel targets in Iraq.

___

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.
__________________

We say only 5 PKK killed  in all air operation.EastKurd

NCRI–State Security Forces (SSF) has detained twenty-eight local residents in a raid on a family party in northeastern city of Shahrud, the official news agency IRNA reported on Monday. The SSF commander in Shahrud, Colonel Farajollah Vafadar said, "The police arrested eighteen girls and ten boys with inappropriate and repulsive clothing in the house" in a party, IRNA added. The SSF commander added that the raid in Shahrud took place on Friday.  "Among those arrested were ten housewives, four students and four pupils", Vafadar told IRNA. Since last April thousands of women and youth have been arrested by the SSF suppressive forces on the pretext of mal-veiling and combating "thugs and hooligans" in Iran.

By Reza Derakhshi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Three students jailed for up to three years on charges including insulting Iran's Supreme Leader have been granted release on bail of about $85,000 each, their lawyer said on Tuesday.

Lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah said the university students, who were arrested in May, remained in detention but bail had been set at 800 million rials each, adding that he hoped that their convictions would soon be quashed by a higher court.

"The appeals court ... ruled to release them on bail amounting to 800 million rials each," Dadkhah told Reuters, adding that two of them had already secured the money. "So I hope they will be released and then acquitted soon."

He said students Ahmad Ghassaban, Majid Tavakkoli and Ehsan Mansouri were sentenced two months ago for acting against national security as well as insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini, Iran's highest authority. He did not give details.

Tavakkoli was sentenced to three years in jail, Ghassaban to two and a half, and Mansouri to two years, he said.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said earlier this year they were among eight students arrested on charges of "insulting state leaders," "inciting public opinion," and "printing inflammatory and derogatory materials" in student publications.

The students said the publications were forged and that they had no role in producing them, the rights group said. In July, five of the students were released on bail.

They were studying at Amir Kabir University, one of Tehran's largest, with a history of student activism.

At the same university in December last year, dozens of students burned pictures of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and threw firecrackers in an apparent effort to disrupt his speech.

It was the first time the hardline president, elected in 2005 pledging a return to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, had faced such open hostility at a public event.

Rights activists and Western diplomats say pro-reform students have been among groups targeted in what they say is a new crackdown on dissenting voices. Others being pressured include labor movement figures and intellectuals, they say.

The president and his government say they support free speech and welcome constructive opposition.

Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said the three Amir Kabir students had been convicted twice on different charges and had already served a four-month sentence.

He confirmed at a news conference on Tuesday that the stiffer jail terms of up to three years had been appealed, but did not say whether they would be freed on bail.

Earlier this month, protesters demanding the release of detained students tore down the bars of a gate at another Tehran university, an Iranian media report said and photographs showed.

(Additional reporting by Hossein Jaseb; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Sami Aboudi)

U.S president George W. Bush confirmed to Turkish prime Minister that his country continued to co operate with Turkey in confronting PKK guerrillas in northern Iraq, Anatolia news agency reported Monday.

During a telephone call President Bush confirmed to Receb Teib Erdogan, Turkish prime minister that PKK was the enemy of both countries and that he supported the military operations which only target PKK fighters.
In turn, Turkish prime Minister had told the U.S president that his country was determined to continue in the operations against PKK in northern Iraq, according to the triangle agreement between Iraq, Turkey and U.S, the agency reported.

He also stressed that Ankara supported Baghdad government war against terrorism

ARBIL (AFP)--Turkish warplanes bombed three villages inside Iraq on Tuesday, targeting rebel bases in the Kurdish province of Dohuk, an official from the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga security force said.

He said the air strike was "short," lasting for around 10 minutes at around 12:30 pm (0930 GMT) and hit the villages of Rikan, Shezee and Samjuhu in the region of Al-Amadiyah near the border.

"The villages were deserted," the official said on condition of anonymity.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes bombed an area inside Iraq near the border with Turkey on Tuesday, an Iraqi Kurdish border guard official said.

The official, Colonel Hussein Tamar, director of the border guard command in the Iraqi Kurdish province of Dahuk, said no one was hurt in the strikes, which targeted an area that was evacuated earlier this month.

Turkey has been repeatedly bombing areas in northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK separatist rebels over the past few weeks, apparently with the support of the United States, whose forces have acknowledged clearing air space for the flights.

Turkish ground troops have also made occasional cross-border raids, although a large-scale ground assault is seen as unlikely, especially in winter.

Turkey says it has the right to pursue PKK guerrillas in cross-border raids after the Iraq-based rebels carried out a number of deadly attacks in Turkey.

U.S. and Iraqi leaders say they support Turkey's right to strike back at the separatists, but want action to be limited in scale and coordinated to avoid destabilizing northern Iraq.

(Reporting by Sherko Raouf; writing by Peter Graff, editing by Mary Gabriel)

At a press conference, held after the meeting of Kurdistan political leadership, the Iraqi president Mr. Jalal Talabani said, “Memorandum of understanding was signed between Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Kurdistan Democratic Party and Iraqi Islamic Party on Monday (December 24) at Dukan Resort in the city of Sulaimani.”

His Excellency also added that the three parties have been negotiating for about a year to prepare this memo which is expected to serve Iraq and Kurdistan with all their components.

Kurdish member of Iraqi national assembly called the Iraqi government to complaint raise to International Security Council against Turkey to stop the repeatedly assaults Turkish army does against Kurdish people in Iraq, accusing U.S of taking advantage from the situation.

In an interview with voices of Iraq news agency Dr, Mahmud Othman said the Kurdish alliance in the national assembly assert on the importance of raising a complaint by the Iraqi government to international security council against Turkey, regarding the fact that Iraqi was still under article 7 of international mandate, so the council was responsible for any assaults Iraqi people were subjected to.
“Turkey obviously intervenes in Iraqi internal issues” he told the agency, adding that Iraqi government must put an end for that.

The Kurdish official expressed his believe that U.S administration supported the Turkish attacks; therefore U.N was important to have attitudes in the events.

He said U.S had more strategic ties with Turkey than those with Iraq, reiterating that U.S turkey and Israel have military and security ties for more than a decade.

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdish separatist guerrillas in northern Iraq said on Monday they had suffered no casualties from Turkish airstrikes and cross-border incursions in December.

The Turkish military said earlier this month its attacks had inflicted heavy casualties on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which uses Iraq's remote, mountainous north as a base for attacks in Turkey where it seeks an independent homeland.

Senior PKK official Abdul Rahman Chaderchi told Reuters the Turkish attacks had, however, killed five fighters of the anti-Iranian Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the PKK.

An Iraqi Kurdish official said Turkish warplanes had bombed areas in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq on Sunday for the second straight day and the third time in December. Turkish troops have also conducted at least two small-scale cross-border raids so far this month.

Chaderchi said the PJAK fighters were killed on December 16, but gave no details.

Ankara says it has the right to use force to combat the PKK, which has been pressing its campaign since 1984. Over 30,000 people have been killed in fighting.

The United States, which lists the PKK as a terrorist group, says it shares common interests with Turkey in stopping PKK activities in Iraq but fears a further escalation in tension could destabilise Iraq's more stable north.

(Reporting by Shamal Aqrawi, writing by Alaa Shahine; editing by Ralph Boulton)

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) - Turkish jets bombed northern Iraq on Sunday in the latest of a string of attacks on Kurdish rebels there, but caused no damage or casualties, an Iraqi Kurdish security spokesman said.

"Turkish warplanes bombed Karukh mountain north of Arbil," said Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Kurdish militia which is responsible for security in northern Iraq.

He said the raid was carried out by three jets but "there was no damage or loss of life."

Turkish fighter jets first carried out reconnaissance in the Qandil mountains near the border with Turkey and Iran, before bombing certain positions, the Turkish Anatolia news agency cited Jabbar Yawar as saying.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Turkish military.

If confirmed, it would be the fourth Turkish military operation against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the past week in northern Iraq, which Ankara says the rebels use as a springboard for attacks in Turkey.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and many other countries, has waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

Turkey has been stepping up pressure since its parliament approved cross-border raids on PKK bases in October, with Ankara saying the Iraqi government and its US backers were not doing enough to halt attacks.

On December 16 the Turkish military said its aircraft attacked PKK positions in the Qandil mountains, where Turkey says thousands of rebels are holed up.

Two days later the Turkish army said troops penetrated into northern Iraq from the southeast Turkish province of Hakkari in an operation Iraqi officials said about 500 troops took part in.

A report by the Firat news agency, close to the PKK, cited the rebels as saying they had suffered no casualties in Saturday's raids.

Ankara has accused Iraqi Kurds, who run an autonomous administration in the north of the country, of tolerating and supporting the PKK.

Turkey, which has the second largest army in the NATO military alliance after the US with 515,000 troops, has moved around 100,000 soldiers up to its 380-kilometre (230-mile) border with Iraq.

The United States fears that Turkey could launch a major cross-border operation and destabilise the relatively peaceful northern part of Iraq.

After a flurry of diplomatic activity, Iraq promised to rein in the PKK and in November US President George W. Bush said Washington would provide Ankara with information on rebel movements from its satellites.

The president of Iraq's Kurdish region, Massud Barzani, refused to meet visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Baghdad on Tuesday in protest at US support for Turkey's strikes, a Kurdish official said.

Ankara has denied that civilians were hit on December 16, blaming reports of villages being bombed and hospitals and schools destroyed on PKK sympathisers among Iraqi officials seeking to mislead the international community.

The UN refugee agency has said around 1,800 people fled their homes in Sulaimaniyah and Arbil provinces in northern Iraq following the attacks.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A senior US diplomat said Iran has reined in Shiite militias in Iraq, causing a sharp drop in roadside bomb attacks in recent months, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The Iranian leadership "at the most senior levels" has moved to restrain the Shiite militias it supports in neighboring Iraq, David Satterfield, Iraq coordinator and senior adviser to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told the Post.

While the flow of weapons from Iran may not have stopped, the decline in overall attacks "has to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision," Satterfield said in an interview.

The US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said that Iran's decision, "should (Tehran) choose to corroborate it in a direct fashion," would be "a good beginning" for a fourth round of talks between US and Iranian officials in Baghdad.

A scheduled mid-December US-Iran meeting on Iraq was postponed, but Crocker said he expects that the two sides will convene "in the next couple of weeks."

One unnamed US official told the paper the view of the senior American diplomats in Iraq was generally in keeping with the thrust of intelligence analyses on Iraq.

Iran "would definitely like to maintain some degree of influence over the militias" and other players in Iraq, the same official said.

Rather than scaling back its influence in Iraq, Iran has chosen "a creative shift in tactics" as violent militias have sparked resentment among many Iraqis, including Shiites, the official added.

Satterfield also said Iran was not acting out of "altruism" but "alarm at what was being done by the groups they were backing in terms of their own long-term interests."

The diplomat's comments came after a report from US intelligence agencies this month that concluded Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, contradicting past statements from President George W. Bush and his top aides.

The Bush administration has frequently accused Iran of fomenting chaos and violence in Iraq but Satterfield said a steady decline in sophisticated roadside bomb attacks seemed to indicate a change in course.

He said that "we have seen such a consistent and sustained diminution in certain kinds of violence by certain kinds of folks that we can't explain it solely" by internal factors in Iraq.

"If you add those all together, your calculus doesn't come out unless you also add in that the Iranians at a command level must have said or done something, as well."

Satterfield declined to offer specific evidence but, referring to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, said: "We are confident that decisions involving the strategy pursued by the IRGC are made at the most senior levels of the Iranian government."

The administration has used the same wording previously to argue that IRGC training and supplies for militias in Iraq were guided by the Iranian regime's top leadership.

The Defense Department has adopted a more cautious view, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying Friday it remained unclear whether Iran had stopped the bomb attacks or whether better intelligence and tactics contributed to the change.

"I think the jury is out," Gates told reporters.

The Pentagon said in a report Tuesday that Iran continues to funnel weapons and supplies to Shiite insurgents in Iraq.

Iran has consistently denied providing Iraqi militias with funding or training.

Kurdistan region president Masaud Barzani visited Saturday the border areas which were bombarded them and forces the villagers to leave their homes fearing of their lives.

Kurdish president met with the displaced families of Qandil villages and promised them to do his best to compensate their damages and move politically to stop the Turkish threats.

Kurdish president was welcomed by the PUK and PDK centers in the area.

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran's first nuclear power plant will be operational within three months, providing electricity to Iran's national power grid by the summer, according to Iranian Energy Minister Parviz Fattah. Russia, which is building the Bushehr plant for Iran, started delivering nuclear fuel to the facility a week ago as part of a compromise effort to alleviate concerns over Iran's nuclear intentions while supporting Iran's right to a nuclear energy program. Fattah told reporters Saturday that the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which was previously expected to be completed last September, will become operational on March 21, 2008, according to Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB ) . The plant will deliver 500 megawatts of electricity to the power grid by summer and 1,000 megawatts by March 2009, IRIB reported. Atomstroiexport, Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, completed the first stage of nuclear fuel deliveries a week ago, the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency said. The United States, several European nations, and Israel suspect Tehran has been trying to acquire nuclear weapons, but Iran denies its nuclear program is for anything but peaceful purposes. A recent U.S. intelligence summary concluded that, contrary to earlier suspicions, Iran halted its nuclear weapons development in 2003. Atomstroiexport, the Russian monopoly, is building the $1 billion Bushehr plant under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency. The Russian foreign ministry and nuclear officials said the fuel delivery was under full IAEA safeguards. A statement on the Russian Foreign Ministry's official Web site last week said Iran had provided additional written guarantees that the fuel can only be used at and for the Bushehr plant, and that the spent fuel will be returned to Russia for utilization and storage. The U.N. Security Council has repeatedly demanded that Iran suspend its own enrichment of uranium and has imposed limited sanctions on Tehran for refusing to comply. Russia, France, and China -- all permanent Security Council members -- have voiced concerns about the proposed sanctions. A recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate said Iran stopped work toward a nuclear weapon while under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015. Construction of the plant was expected to be completed in September, but was delayed because of lack of financing and delayed equipment deliveries from other countries, the official Russian news agency Interfax said.

By C. ONUR ANT
Associated Press Writer

ANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq on Saturday in the third confirmed cross-border offensive by Turkish forces in less than a week, a statement posted on the military's Web site said.

The military said the bombing lasted nearly a half-hour on Saturday afternoon, and was followed by shelling from inside Turkish borders. It did not say how deep into Iraqi territory the warplanes penetrated, or which areas were shelled.

It vowed to continue military operations on both sides of Turkish-Iraqi border "no matter how the conditions are."

Turkish jet fighters on Dec. 16 launched the first confirmed air assault on Iraqi soil since the U.S.-led invasion, bombing bases in northern Iraq held by the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

The United States and Iraq both have urged Turkey to avoid a major operation in the area, fearing it could destabilize what has been the calmest region in Iraq.

Turkish forces periodically have shelled across the border, and sometimes have carried out "hot pursuits" - limited raids on the Iraqi side that sometimes last only a few hours.

The rebels have battled for autonomy in southeastern Turkey for more than two decades, and use strongholds in northern Iraq for cross-border strikes.

After a surge in rebel attacks in the past months, Turkey has said it can no longer tolerate the attacks on its troops, and in October Turkey's Parliament authorized the military to strike back at the rebels inside Iraq.

In a Nov. 5 meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Bush declared the PKK a "common enemy," and promised to share intelligence on the group.

"The terrorist organization of the PKK will see and understand that there is no secure place left Iraq's north, and it will understand that it has no chances against the Turkish Republic," the Turkish statement said.

Two days after the first air assault, Turkey sent hundreds of troops into northern Iraq in another operation, but withdrew them later in the day. The military then said those two operations dealt a major blow to the rebels, but did not say how many rebels had been killed.

In Saturday's statement, it said "hundreds" were killed in operations, citing "intelligence gathered from various sources." It said footage showing the results of the operations would be released in coming days.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported that more than 1,800 people fled their homes in parts of northern Iran, and Iraqi officials have complained that Turkey's actions are a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. They have also said they recognize the threat posed by the PKK.

Iran Focus

London, Dec. 22 – A prominent international human rights organisation called for the immediate release of an Iranian trade union leader who was rushed to hospital after collapsing in prison.

Amnesty International said that it had received reliable reports that Mahmoud Salehi, a spokesperson for the Organisational Committee to Establish Trade Unions, was taken unconscious to Tohid hospital in Sanandaj on 11 December, after repeatedly collapsing in prison between 4-10 December as a result of his health problems.

“Salehi has a long-term history of kidney and heart complaints. In May 2007, his doctor made a request asking for Salehi to receive specialist treatment. That request continues to be ignored” Amnesty International said in a statement on Friday.

“Amnesty International regards Salehi as a prisoner of conscience and has ongoing concerns for his well-being”, it said. “The case is the latest example of the Iranian authorities continual disregard for the health of prisoners”.

“Mahmoud Salehi's life is at risk. He urgently needs proper and sustained treatment outside prison. The Iranian government must release him now”, said Shane Enright, Amnesty International UK's Trade Union Campaigns Manager.

Salehi was arrested after a demonstration to celebrate May Day 2004.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Saturday it did not have any information about former FBI agent Robert Levinson who reportedly went missing in the country nine months ago, comments likely to disappoint Levison's visiting family members.

Levison's wife and son say he disappeared in March after he traveled to Iran's Gulf resort island of Kish to investigate cigarette smuggling for a client. They arrived in the Islamic Republic on Tuesday to search for him.

Accompanied by Swiss diplomats, who represent U.S. interests in Tehran because the two old foes have not had diplomatic ties since shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Christine and Daniel Levinson met Iranian officials and also went to Kish.

But government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham suggested they had not been able to find out more about his fate.

"We have no information about him and at the same time no information confirming his disappearance. But we welcome any information which can help us in this matter," Elham told a news conference when asked about their four-day visit.

"We told them to provide us with any useful information to help us follow up this case and settle this issue," he said.

Levinson retired from the FBI's New York office a decade ago and had taken a trip from Dubai to Kish to investigate counterfeiting and smuggling of cigarettes for a client, likely a tobacco company, his wife has said.

U.S. officials have said they believe Levinson is in Iran but they have no credible information on his whereabouts. The Iranian government has said it investigated the case but did not know what happened to him.

Levinson called his wife on March 8 before boarding a plane from Dubai to Kish. He told her he had left most of his luggage at a Dubai hotel and would be back within 24 hours, but he failed to call on March 10, his 59th birthday.

In August, the State Department said it had urged Levinson's family to think twice about visiting Iran, where four U.S. citizens have been detained this year. The four were released later.

A Swiss diplomat told Reuters Christine and Daniel Levinson, one of seven children, had visited a hotel in Kish where Robert Levinson had been, but he declined to give details.

He said they were due to leave Tehran later on Saturday.

Christine Levinson said in September that her husband met Dawud Salahuddin, himself a U.S. citizen, at a Kish hotel.

Salahuddin, who she said was helping to investigate cigarette smuggling, told her he was briefly detained by Iranian security authorities who wanted to check his papers and when he returned to the hotel the former FBI agent was gone.

(Reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)

Mahmoud Salehi has long suffered persecution by the Iranian authorities, spending several periods in prison because of their legitimate and peaceful activities as trade union activists and human rights defenders. He began his sentence on 9 April 2007. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience and is concerned for his health.

Mahmoud Salehi has long-term medical concerns. A request by his doctor in May 2007 that he be accorded specialist treatment outside the prison has been ignored. He suffers from chronic kidney disease, for which he requires dialysis. He is also said to suffer from a heart disorder. This month (December 2007) it was reported that Salehi has grave intestinal edema or swelling that may be connected with his renal disease.

Send an appeal now

amnesty.org.uk

Yaghoub Salaki Nia , a journalist who had spent 50 days in Tehran’s Evin prison without being charged, was freed on 19 December after payment of 80 million toumen (80,000 euros) in bail. Eleven other journalists are still detained in Iran, the Middle East’s biggest prison for the press.

“We cannot welcome Nia’s release without at the same time thinking of the other journalists still held in appalling conditions, often in solitary confinement,” Reporters Without Borders said. “They include
Adnan Hassanpour , who has been awaiting execution for the past several months. There has never been any letup in the Islamic Republic’s repression of journalists in these past few years. An international campaign is more necessary than ever.”

A contributor to several publications including Shamesse Tabriz, Ahrar and Omid Zanjan, Nia had been arrested on 30 October.

Adl Mazri, the editor of the newspaper Sobh e Zahedan, was released on 12 December, four days after being summoned by a revolutionary tribunal in the southeastern city of Zahedan and arrested on charges of publishing false information and “disturbing public opinion” as a result of a complaint by the prefect of Sistan and Baluchestan province. He is now awaiting trial.

Ashtai, a weekly published in Kurdish and Farsi that was suspended on 5 August, was closed for good on 3 December by a court in the city of Sanandaj, the capital of the northwestern province of Kurdistan. Arzesh, a conservative quarterly, was at the same time closed by a court in Tehran and its editor, Ali Nazari was fined 1,200 euros.

A European parliamentary delegation called for Hassanpour’s release during a visit to Tehran from 9 to 11 December. Hassanpour’s death sentence was upheld by the Tehran supreme court on 22 October.

Plight of imprisoned journalists

The authorities have still not revealed where they are holding Omid Ahamadzadeh , a contributor to Aso and Didgah, two newspapers that have been suspended since 2005. The reasons for his arrest by intelligence officers in Sanandaj on 28 November are also still unknown. The official news agency ILNA did however report that Abolfazl Abedini Nasr of the daily Bahar Khozestan has been charged with “complicity with a terrorist entity.” Arrested on 13 November in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, he is reportedly suspected of links with someone responsible for a bombing.

A hearing in the appeal of journalist and human rights activist Emadoldin Baghi was held on 15 November in his absence. The former editor of Jomhouriat (a daily suspended in 2004), Baghi is appealing against the three-year sentence he got from a Tehran revolutionary court for “activity against national security” and “publicity in favour of government opponents.” He has been in solitary confinement in Evin prison since his arrest on 14 October.

The many requests for the release of reporter Ejlal Ghavami of the weekly Payam-e Mardom-e Kurdestan on health grounds have been ignored. Ghavami, who needs an operation for an acute eye infection that is discharging pus, is serving a three-year sentence in Evin prison for “inciting people to revolt” and “activity against national security.” The editor of Payam-e Mardom-e Kurdestan, Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand, has not been able to take advantage of a conditional release order because his family cannot raise the amount of bail demanded, which is 150 million toumen (145,000 euros).

Said Matinpour of the weekly Yarpagh has meanwhile been allowed to receive a visit from his family for the first time since his arrest on 28 May.

Sign the petition for Adnan Hassanpour’s release 

Reporters Without Borders

Rising number of hangings coincide with adoption of a new resolution condemning the human rights violations by the mullahs' regime in the UN General Assembly

NCRI - The mullahs' regime hanged four prisoners in the notorious Evin Prison, the state-run news agency ISNA reported on December 19.

A total of four prisoners were hanged, two in prison in the central city of Isfahan and two others in the prison yard in the southeastern city of Zahedan, the state-run news agency Fars reported on December 17.

The new increase in the number of hangings come at a time when the UN General Assembly passed its 54th resolution condemning the "systematic" and widespread violations of human rights by the medieval regime in Iran.

The Iranian Resistance calls on the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and all international human rights organizations to condemn the regime and refer its dossier to the UN Security Council.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There are still tactical differences between major powers about a third U.N. sanctions resolution against Iran over its nuclear program, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday. Political directors from the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain held a conference call on Thursday to discuss piling more U.N. sanctions on Iran for its refusal to give up sensitive nuclear work. "We obviously still have tactical differences that need to be worked out, about timing and about what is specifically in the resolution," Rice told reporters at a news conference when asked to comment on the conference call. Rice did not say what these tactical difference were, but Russia and China had been holding back on agreeing to a third U.N. Security Council resolution, particularly after a new U.S. intelligence estimate this month found that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Rice said Germany and the permanent members of the Security Council dealing with Iran -- China, Russia, France, Britain and the United States -- all agreed that the two-track approach was the right one. This approach involves tightening sanctions on Iran if it continues to defy U.N. Security Council resolutions while at the same time offering incentives to comply. "We need to convince Iran that it should stop its enrichment and reprocessing activities," said Rice, referring to nuclear work the West believes is aimed at building a nuclear bomb and Tehran says is for peaceful power purposes. "Enrichment and reprocessing is, after all, the long pole in the tent because that is how one gets fissile material that can either be used in civilian programs but can certainly be used in a nuclear weapons program," she said. Two rounds of U.N. sanctions have already been imposed on Iran for failing to heed a U.N. demand that it halt uranium enrichment. Earlier this month, Rice told a women's foreign policy forum that she hoped the text of a new Security Council resolution would be voted on in the coming weeks but U.S. officials say it could take a lot longer.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States and five other powers failed again to reach agreement Thursday on tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "We continue to have some tactical differences about the timing, but more than that, about how deep this (UN) resolution should go," Rice said in an interview with AFP after senior diplomats from the six powers consulted Thursday. The United States has been involved in difficult talks with Russia, China, Britain and France -- the five permanent UN Security Council members, or P5, that all have veto power -- and Germany for another UN resolution against Iran. Washington is promoting a two-track strategy aimed at offering Iran a dialogue that would give it economic benefits if it stops enriching uranium, or at threatening a third round of punitive sanctions. The political directors of the State Department and the foreign ministries of the five other countries did not reach agreement during a conference call Thursday, but Rice said they agreed on the broad approach. She stressed what she called "forward movement" in the talks. "I suspect that at some point this is going to have to go to ministers, as it always does. But we think that there's enough continuous forward movement, that it's good for the political officials to keep talking," she told AFP. "We are all in agreement that the two-track strategy that we have been pursuing is the right strategy, because we need to convince Iran that it should stop its enrichment and reprocessing activities," Rice said earlier, in a news conference with her Canadian counterpart Maxime Bernier. "Enrichment and reprocessing is, after all, the long pole in the tent, because that's how one gets fissile material that can either be used in civilian programs, but can certainly be used in a nuclear weapons program. "And so, that is why the world has been focused on that in two separate Security Council resolutions," Rice said. The political directors of the six countries held a 90-minute conference call on December 11 about Iran's nuclear program, but did not finalize a draft sanctions resolution. Rice admitted afterward that the United States has "tactical differences" with Russia and China about the "timing, about the nature of any further sanctions." But she said that "the two-track strategy remains in place," when asked if the US National Intelligence Estimate, published December 3, undercut the US drive for sanctions. The report said Iran had stopped an alleged covert nuclear weapons program in 2003. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful. Rice conceded that China's key trade ties with Iran was a "sticking point" in efforts to get Beijing's support for sanctions. The Asian giant is a major importer of Iran's oil and gas. "Obviously, the Chinese have some economic interests that are different from the economic interests of the other parties. And that is, frankly, sometimes a sticking point," she told AFP. "But I think we'll still get a good resolution."

Amnesty International Public Statement
 

The execution of Raheleh Zamani has reportedly been postponed until around 2 January 2008. She had been due to be hanged in Evin Prison, in the capital, Tehran, on 19 December 2007 (not 20 December as previously stated) for the killing of her husband.

 

Raheleh Zamani, a mother of two children aged five and three, was sentenced to qesas-e nafs (retribution in kind) in October 2005 for the murder earlier the same year of her husband, Mohammad, whom she alleged was having an extra-marital affair. Raheleh Zamani reportedly said in her defence that she was threatened with violence by her husband each time she asked him to end his affair. She said that she had never meant to kill her husband, but just wanted to "teach him a lesson". A month and a half prior to the murder, Raheleh Zamani had given birth to her second child, a son. She may have been suffering from severe post-natal depression. Her husband's family had refused to accept diyeh (blood money). However, it is believed that the postponement of Raheleh Zamani's execution follows a decision by her husband's family to give her two weeks in which to raise the money for the payment of diyeh. The amount of money in question is not known to Amnesty International.

Raheleh Zamani is believed to be held in Evin Prison in the capital, Tehran. On 19 December, one woman and three men were hanged at the prison. This brings to six the total number of women believed to have been executed in Iran in 2007. In addition to Raheleh Zamani, two other men were also spared execution in order to give them the chance to raise diyeh.

 

Executions in Iran have increased sharply in 2007, particularly in the wake of a crackdown on "social vices" which was announced in April and has continued to date. Amnesty International has recorded at least 310 executions to date, some of which have been in public, including some multiple hangings.

 

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in Persian, English, Arabic or your own language:

- seeking clarification of reports that the execution of Raheleh Zamani has been postponed until around 2 January 2008, to allow her to raise the money needed for the payment of diyeh;

- calling for Raheleh Zamani's death sentence to be commuted;

- stating that you recognize that governments have a right and a duty to bring to justice those suspected of criminal offences, but stating your unconditional opposition to the death penalty, as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and violation of the right to life;

- asking for details of her trial and any appeals, including how the judge determined that she had committed pre-meditated murder;

- urging the Iranian authorities to bring Iranian legislation into line with their international human rights obligations, so that people sentenced to death for murder have the right to seek pardon or commutation of their sentence from the state.

APPEALS TO:

Head of the Judiciary

Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi

Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh / Office of the Head of the Judiciary

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

Email:              info@dadgostary-tehran.ir  (In the subject line write: FAO Ayatollah Shahroudi)

Salutation:       Your Excellency

 

COPIES TO:

Leader of the Islamic Republic

His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei

The Office of the Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic Street - Shahid Keshvar Doust Street

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Email:              info@leader.ir

Salutation:       Your Excellency

President

His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Email:              dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir

via website:      www.president.ir/email

 

Director, Human Rights Headquarters of Iran

His Excellency Mohammad Javad Larijani

Howzeh Riassat-e Ghoveh Ghazaiyeh

(Office of the Head of the Judiciary)

Pasteur St.,

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

Tehran 1316814737

Fax:                  +98 21 3390 4986 (please keep trying)

Email:              fsharafi@bia-judiciary.ir  (In the subject line: FAO Mohammad Javad Larijani)

               int_aff@judiciary.ir  (In the subject line: FAO Mohammad Javad Larijani)

and to diplomatic representatives of Iran accredited to your country.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

Daily Telegraph

IRBIL, Iraq — Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq threatened to withdraw support from the Baghdad government if demands for federal power sharing and a fair share of the oil wealth are not met.

Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of Kurdish northern Iraq, said Iraq's Shi'ite-led coalition government, which relies on Kurdish members of parliament to survive, "must be changed" if it does not transfer powers to his region.

"What we ask for as Kurds comes within the constitution of Iraq," he said. "We did whatever we could do to ensure that Iraq could succeed, but Iraq is a complicated country. Now we have reached one question: whether we are partners in the government or not. We don't have that kind of feeling.

"Certainly if we do not see any response from Baghdad to solve the issues raised, we would be obliged to take another route," he said.

Under Iraq's new constitution, three northern provinces were granted autonomy from Baghdad to form the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Clauses detailed rights to oil revenues and a referendum on disputed areas, including the strategic city of Kirkuk. Baghdad has since contested KRG efforts to attract foreign oil investment and has failed to deliver the referendum.

"The problem in Baghdad is you have a structure, you have a prime minister, but you have nobody to make a decision," Mr. Barzani said.

Relations between the two governments hit an all-time low last month when Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani said companies dealing with the Kurds will be blacklisted. The bulk of Iraq's oil wealth lies outside the Kurdish region but its reserves are an attractive pool of future supply. The announcement cast a shadow on tentative efforts by Western firms to enter the region.

The Kurdish government denounced Mr. Shahristani's attempts to suppress its rights.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's military may stage more cross-border operations into northern Iraq to hunt down separatist Kurdish rebels, Turkey's parliament speaker said Thursday, as the justice minister again urged the rebels to surrender.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan thanked the Turkish armed forces, calling their operations successful, and said Turkey was at an important stage of its fight against the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, who are based in northern Iraq.

Turkey, which has massed thousands of troops along the border, sent hundreds of them across into the mountains of northern Iraq on Tuesday. It said it inflicted heavy losses on Turkish Kurd rebels in a small-scale incursion that lasted about 15 hours - and in air strikes by as many as 50 fighter jets on suspected rebel hideouts two days earlier.

"The Turkish armed forces will carry on with these operations whenever they are needed," parliament speaker Koksal Toptan said Thursday.

Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said, "I hope the members of the terrorist group understand that they cannot achieve their aim by fighting the security forces."

"They should come and give themselves up to the merciful hands of the state. They should rejoin their mothers, their fathers and relatives and live in peace as a citizen of this country," he said.

The government has said it plans to expand an amnesty law that pardons rebels who leave the PKK voluntarily and who have not been engaged in fighting.

The rebels have battled for autonomy in southeastern Turkey for more than two decades and use strongholds in northern Iraq for cross-border strikes. Turkey has said it can no longer tolerate the attacks on its troops, and in October Turkey's Parliament authorized the country's military to strike back at the rebels inside Iraq.

Tuesday's raid was the first confirmed Turkish ground operation targeting rebel bases inside Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, though about 1,200 Turkish military monitors have operated in northern Iraq since 1996 with permission from local authorities.

The incursion was not a large-scale push that some feared could destabilize a relatively calm part of Iraq.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported that more than 1,800 people fled their homes in parts of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan last weekend, and Iraqi officials have complained that Turkey's actions are a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. They have also said they recognize the threat posed by the PKK.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian security forces killed four leaders of a Sunni Muslim rebel group that Tehran has previously linked to al Qaeda and blamed for several attacks in the Islamic state, state television reported on Thursday.

The four members of Jundollah (God's Soldiers) were involved in the murder of 12 Iranians in a roadside attack last year in the southeast Sistan-Baluchistan province, near Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to state television.

"Police and security forces jointly ... killed four Jundollah ringleaders who played main roles in the group's terrorist attacks," state television reported, citing a statement issued by the Intelligence Ministry.

The shadowy group, led by Abdolmalek Rigi, in February claimed responsibility for an attack on Iran's Revolutionary Guards that killed 11 people. In March 2006, the group said it was behind an attack that killed 22 people.

Iran has previously said Rigi, who was not among the leaders killed in the government raid, was a cell leader of Osama bin Laden's Sunni Muslim al Qaeda network in the overwhelmingly Shi'ite Muslim Iran.

The southeast of Iran is a major smuggling route for drugs and other contraband. More than 3,300 Iranian security personnel have died in the region fighting drug traffickers since Iran's 1979 revolution.

Tourists visiting the region have been advised not to travel at night in the area.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, Editing by Michael Kahn)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Turkey informed the United States well in advance before launching weekend air raids into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebel bases, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

"We had ample notification of the air strikes by the Turkish Air Force against PKK (Kurdish separatist group) positions in northern Iraq," spokesman Geoff Morrell said, confirming for the first time that Washington knew of Ankara's plans.

"It was communicated to us through the Ankara coordination center, this has been opened for some months now, in which you have Turkish personnel along with US military personnel working to share intelligence."

He told reporters the coordination had been "adequate" and said the Pentagon had nothing to complain about.

Sunday's strikes were followed Tuesday by a small-scale ground operation in which Turkish troops penetrated "several kilometers" into northern Iraq from the southeast Turkish province of Hakkari, the Turkish military said on its website.

Turkish chief of staff General Yasar Buyukanit had said earlier in the week that the United States gave the green light for Sunday's air raids by providing "intelligence" and opening Iraqi airspace.

The PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) has said five of its members and two civilians died in the bombing. Local officials said a woman was killed.

"We continue to be of course concerned by any potential loss of innocent lives during these military operations and the potential impact it could have on Iraq in terms of having a destabilizing influence but ... we all have concerns by the terrorist threat posed by the PKK," Morrell added.

Tehran, 19 Dec. (AKI) - The vice president of the Iranian Olympic Committee, Abdolreza Savar, has announced new rules to fight what he defines as the sport's "subjugation to western customs and practices"

In a memorandum sent to all sporting federations, Savar, who is in-charge of the "proper behaviour of male and female athletes" said that "severe punishment will be meted out to those who do not follow Islamic rules during sporting competitions" both local and abroad.

The memorandum also said that "no male coach can train or accompany the athletes when they travel abroad."

"If female trainers are not found, our female teams will not participate in international competitions," said Savar.

Iran's athletes are considered among the best in the Middle East, but due to severe restrictions imposed by the government, women are sometimes excluded from competition and prevented from fully exploiting their potential.

An example of this is the Iranian volleyball team, which has not been able to qualify to any international competition, as it does not have a trainer.

"In volleyball there aren't any female trainers capable, and the Olympic committee does not allow us to employ males to train the female team," said Saiid Derakhshandeh, president of the Iranian Voleyball Federation.

Iran's voleyball team was once considered to be among the best in Asia.

The memorandum also referred to new rules regarding the attire worn by the athletes, saying that if these rules are not followed, the athletes will be severely punished and will not be able to participate in future national or international competitions.

Savar also made reference to a Tae-Kwon-Do competition held on the island of Macau, in China when a male referee grabbed and raised the arm of a female Iranian player who had won a tournament.

He said that Iran's sportswomen will not participate at the next Olympic games, in any discipline, where there will be any sort of physical contact with the referee, if it is a man.

Iran's objective, says Savar "is not just to win medals, but to promote Islamic culture, and thus we have decided to inaugurate an exhibition dedicated to Islamic values during the Olympic games in Beijing" in 2008.

Other women in Iran have also been prevented from pursuing their sporting activities.

Iranian rally car champion driver Laleh Seddigh was banned for 12 months from participating in any race.

She was accused of having tampered with her car's engine during her last race in Iran.

In a telephone interview with Adnkronos International (AKI) Seddigh says "It's a conspiracy, I did not commit any irregularities. They simply want to exclude me from racing because I'm a woman."

Seddigh, known as the "Schumacher of the East", in reference to the now retired seven-time Formula 1 world champion Michael Schumacher.

"They probably did not appreciate the fact that I am a woman and at the same time the most famous racecar driver in the Middle East," she said. "They would prefer to see a woman with a frying pan or an iron in her hand."

When Turkish soldiers, coming from Hakkari province, crossed the border and got into Iraqi Kurdistan, they clashed with HPG guerrillas there, in the area of Xakurke and Geliyê Reş. Following that clash, eight Turkish soldiers died and furthermore many of them were wounded.

After that clash, Turkish soldiers went back to the Turkish territory; anyway, alas, after that there occurred artillery bombing over the Southern Kurdistan.

Six people were executed at Evin prison in Iran on Wednesday, while another female prisoner was spared the death penalty at the last minute.

Despite a move by the United Nations' general assembly to approve a moratorium on the death penalty, Iran shows no sign of ending executions.

Among those put to death was Ghassem, a man who was accused of rape and homosexual relations with 15 adolescents. A woman, Zahra, was executed for having killed her husband.

But Raheleh Zamani, who was found guilty of killing her husband, was spared the death penalty minutes before she was due to be hanged.

Her lawyer stopped Raheleh's death after presenting a letter from the family of her murdered husband, in which they renounced their call for the death penalty.

Assieh Amini, the Iranian feminist, who campaigns for women condemned to death, told Adnkronos International (AKI) about Zamani's last minute reprieve.

The UN resolution was co-sponsored by European Union states and 60 other countries, and spearheaded by Italy whose foreign minister, Massimo D'Alema, called it ''an important step'' to end capital punishment.

''The campaign should continue,'' he told reporters. ''We call on each member state to implement the resolution.''

In a vote in the assembly on Tuesday, 104 member states voted in favour of the resolution, 54 voted against and 29 abstained. All resolutions are non-binding.

Hands Off Cain, a Rome-based anti-death penalty group, says more people were put to death last year -- 5,628 -- than in either of the previous two years. China reportedly accounted for 5,000 executions while Iran ranked second with at least 215 people put to death.

The United States sided with Iran, China and Syria in opposing the UN resolution.

In a dispatch from New York, IRNA, the official Iranian agency, said "this type of resolution does not impact in any way the obligations of member countries".

AKI

By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. and Turkish military officials were working Wednesday to streamline procedures for any future attacks against rebels in northern Iraq after top American officials in Baghdad were angered about how Sunday's Turkish bombing unfolded.

Americans have been providing Turkey with intelligence to go after the Kurdish rebels, and a "coordination center" has been set up in Ankara so Turks, Iraqis and Americans can share information, officials have said.

But State Department and Defense Department officials in Washington and Baghdad said top U.S. commanders in Iraq didn't know about the incursion plan until the first of two waves of Turkish planes were already on their way - either crossing the border or already over it.

The Turkish military did not inform the American military as quickly as had been agreed. That meant the U.S. had to rush to clear air space for the incursion, two defense officials and a State Department official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

One Washington official said the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, was angered by the development. Another said American diplomats complained to the Turks about it.

The Turks replied they were chasing rebels and there had not been time for notification earlier, according to a senior State Department official. Turkish officials were not immediately available to comment.

"They said it was hot pursuit," the U.S. official said.

"There are supposed to be coordinating mechanisms for this kind of thing with us and the Iraqis, and whatever happens in the heat of the moment, they have to tell us in a reasonable and timely manner," the official added. "We have told them it would be extremely helpful if they were more forthcoming on the notification."

Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman Wednesday disputed there was a problem, saying "the right people knew at the time." He declined to elaborate.

None of the officials gave details about precisely what procedures had been agreed to. But one noted that the process is complex because it involves Turkey, Iraq, the U.S. and potentially neighboring governments such as Tehran because some rebel camps are near the Iranian border.

For the U.S. alone, the issue cuts across two military commands - the European Command that takes in Turkey and the Central Command, which is managing the war in Iraq.

"It starts in Ankara (with the Turkish military informing the U.S. military) ... then goes up the chain, then the air space is de-conflicted," or cleared, one Washington official said. "It was the Turks who on the first go-around did not give the desired lead time."

It was unclear what the Turkish procedure is for informing Iraq when it plans to move into Iraqi territory. But in Sunday's case, the American military in Baghdad ended up notifying the Iraqi government that planes had already been sent to strike targets of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

Iraqi officials complained bitterly.

The Iraqi parliament on Monday had condemned the bombing, calling it an "outrageous" violation of Iraq's sovereignty that killed innocent civilians.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said his government thought Turkey would coordinate with it before striking the rebels inside Iraq.

Dozens of planes reportedly were involved, which would be the largest aerial attack in years against the outlawed rebel separatist group. Other reports put the number of planes at a much smaller number.

In a visit to Iraq on Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made it clear the United States supports efforts to quash any rebel movement, but she said it was a "Turkish decision" to act.

The Turkish army also sent soldiers about 1.5 miles into northern Iraq in an overnight operation on Tuesday, Kurdish officials said. Kurdish officials said the Turkish troops left Iraq about 15 hours later.

Turkey recently had attacked the area with ground-based artillery and helicopters and there have been unconfirmed reports of airstrikes by warplanes.

Sunday's attack came a month after the U.S. promised to share intelligence with Turkey to help combat the PKK.

Turkey has massed tens of thousands of troops along its border with Iraq. In October, the Turkish parliament voted in favor of authorizing the government to order a cross-border operation against the group.

The United States and Iraq have, however, called on Turkey to avoid a major operation, fearing such an offensive could disrupt one of the most tranquil regions in Iraq.

---

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

United Nations General Assembly condemns "systematic human rights violations" in Iran

NCRI - This evening the UN General Assembly, despite the plots and deals of the religious fascism ruling Iran, passed the resolution of condemning brutal human rights violations in Iran. This resolution, which is the 54th of such resolutions by various UN bodies against the human rights violations by the mullahs' regime, expresses deep concern over "systematic human rights and fundamental freedoms violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran" and asked the UN Secretary General to provide a comprehensive report on the situation of human rights in Iran to the next session of UN General Assembly.

The resolution condemns "inhuman punishments and torture such as flogging and amputation" , "public executions", "use of stoning as a method of execution", "execution of those who were under 18 when they committed the crime", "arrest and suppression of women who want their rightful rights", "continued discrimination and rights abuses against religious, ethnic and other minorities", "serious and constant limitations on freedom of thought and speech, peaceful gatherings and increased persecution of human rights defenders".

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, congratulated the adoption of this resolution to the Iranian people and all human rights defenders across the world and stressed that this medieval regime does not deserve to live among the community of nations and must be isolated by the international community. She called for referral of the regime’s human rights dossier to the UN Security Council for binding measures.

Mrs. Rajavi added that ignoring the medieval crimes of this regime and continuation of deals with it, not only is an obvious grimace to the universal principles of human rights, it also emboldens the regime to continue and to intensify human rights abuses.

Tehran, 19 Dec. (AKI) - A top Muslim cleric in Iran, Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani said on Wednesday that women in Iran who do not wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf, should die.

"Women who do not respect the hijab and their husbands deserve to die," said Hassani, who leads Friday prayers in the city of Urumieh, in Iranian Azerbaijan.

"I do not understand how these women who do not respect the hijab, 28 years after the birth of the Islamic Republic, are still alive," he said.

"These women and their husbands and their fathers must die," said Hassani, who is the representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in eastern Azerbaijan.

Hassani's statements came after two Kurdish feminists in Iran were accused of being members of an armed rebel group and of carrying out subversive activities threatening the security of the state.

It is believed that his statements and the arrests could spark a fresh crackdown on women who do not repect the Islamic dress code in Iran.

Thousands of women in Iran have already been warned this year for their "un-Islamic dress" such as wearing tight, short coats and skimpy headscarves.

By ELENA BECATOROS
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq said Wednesday that their forces would defend civilians if they were caught up in any fighting between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels from the outlawed PKK in the area.

On Tuesday, Turkey sent hundreds of troops across the border into the frigid mountains of northern Iraq, claiming it inflicted heavy losses on Turkish Kurd rebels in the small-scale incursion and in air strikes two days earlier.

The offensive puts more pressure on Washington to mediate between Iraq and Turkey. In a sign of increasing tension, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported that more than 1,800 people fled their homes in parts of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan last weekend.

Iraqi officials have complained that Turkey's actions are a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, although they also have said they recognize the threat posed by the PKK, or Kurdistan People's Party.

"We are not part of the military dispute between Turkey and the PKK," said Jabar Yawar, a spokesman for Kurdistan's Peshmerga militia.

Yawar said that "if there are any violations by Turkish troops against any secure civilian villages, the Peshmerga will do their job to defend their citizens."

Tuesday's raid was the first confirmed Turkish ground operation targeting rebel bases inside Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, though about 1,200 Turkish military monitors have operated in northern Iraq since 1996 with permission from local authorities.

However, the incursion was not a large-scale push that some feared could destabilize a relatively calm part of Iraq — and which is adjacent to the nation's main northern oil fields around Kirkuk.

The rebels have battled for autonomy in southeastern Turkey for more than two decades and use strongholds in northern Iraq for cross-border strikes. Turkey has said it can no longer tolerate the attacks on its troops, and in October Turkey's Parliament authorized the country's military to strike back at the rebels inside Iraq.

In November, the Turkish military reportedly massed 100,000 troops along the border, and there are fears that a major Turkish offensive could cause civilian casualties and lead to conflict with the Peshmerga.

Tuesday's operation involving about 300 soldiers began about 3 a.m. and lasted 15 hours before the soldiers returned to Turkey, Iraqi Kurd officials said.

"Today's Turkish military operation was a limited one, and the troops withdrew from Iraqi territory," Yawar said.

The Turkish military issued a statement saying ground forces based close to the border crossed into northern Iraq after spotting a group of rebels trying to infiltrate into Turkey overnight.

"A heavy blow was inflicted on the group with the land forces stationed in the area," it said.

The incursion came after Turkey launched airstrikes by as many as 50 Turkish fighter jets Sunday against Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq. Iraqi officials said one civilian was killed.

The military said it was not able to give the number of rebels who may have been killed during the airstrikes, but maintained that "many facilities harboring the PKK were hit."

It was unclear what role the U.S. played, if any, in Tuesday's ground operation.

U.S. military commanders in Iraq didn't know Turkey was sending warplanes to bomb in northern Iraq on Sunday until the planes had already crossed the border, said defense and diplomatic officials, who were angered about being left in the dark.

Americans have been providing Turkey with intelligence to go after Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, and a "coordination center" has been set up in Ankara so Turks, Iraqis and Americans can share information, two officials said Tuesday.

But defense and diplomatic officials in Washington and Baghdad said that U.S. commanders in Iraq knew nothing about Sunday's attack until it was already under way. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

The latest ground incursion is small compared with Turkish offensives across the border during the 1990s, when Ankara launched a series of major air and ground attacks against rebel bases. In the most extensive campaign — opened in March 1995 — more than 35,000 Turkish troops pushed up to 35 miles into Iraqi territory.

___

Associated Press writers Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.

BAGHDAD (AFP)--Iraq said Wednesday it believed Turkey was unlikely to conduct an extended operation inside northern Iraq to flush out Kurdish rebels.

"We believe Turkey is not going to extend the operation. It is a limited operation," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told AFP.

Around 500 Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq on Tuesday targeting rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, guerrillas hiding in the mountainous terrain along the border with Turkey.

The ground incursion was the first such operation by Ankara since tensions between the two neighbors broke out after the rebels ambushed a Turkish military patrol Oct. 21 and killed 12 soldiers.

Tuesday evening, Iraqi Kurdish officials from northern Iraq said Ankara had started withdrawing the troops.

Dabbagh said he didn't know if Turkish forces had withdrawn completely.

"It is difficult to say as the area there is not easy to track," he said.

Dabbagh urged Ankara to drop the military action and adopt the route of dialogues to solve the rebel issue.

"We feel this issue will not be solved militarily. Any such action is an attack on Iraq's sovereignty," he said.

On Tuesday, Turkey's military confirmed the operation and said it had dealt a "heavy blow" to the rebels.

By Zardasht Diaz

Turkish air raids on Iraq soil on Saturday to root out PKK bases have opened up a can of worms with unforeseen implications for the future stability of the entire region. For one, it has strengthened the hands of other Iraq neighbors and given them precedence and future justifications for their meddling in the Iraqi affairs including the use of force. Second, as the Iraq airspace is under US command and control by allowing Turkey to violate the airspace of a sovereign country US has become a party to aggression against Iraq. Third, the fact that the US government has acknowledged its prior knowledge about these raids and gave tacit approval without consultation with the Iraqi government or the Kurdistan Regional Government shows that US has no respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq. Fourth, unilateral aggression against a sovereign state, in this case a neighbor is an unjustifiable action that requires international condemnation. However, the international community including US, EU and UN are shamefully silent in the face of this blatant Turkish aggression.

The first prerequisite to solving a conflict is to ensure that guns are silenced first. The PKK declared a ceasefire last month and indicated its willingness to engage in dialogue with the Turkish state. Many people including this writer were hoping that the US will use its influence with Turkey to forge ahead with a dialogue between the PKK and Turkish government, or at least the Kurdish representatives in Turkish parliament. But it seems that neither the US nor Turkey are interested in a genuine peaceful solution to this conflict. The PKK and the Kurdish issue are not the same but at the same time they are intricately interconnected. The PKK is the by product of Turkish repressive policy against Kurdish minority and a comprehensive solution to Kurdish issue without a reasonable accommodation of the PKK is not possible.

Contrary to what the war monger general in Ankara were saying, last Saturday air raids did not amount to anything except for some innocent civilian lives that were tragically lost. All parties involved were ultimate losers. This conflict has a solution and this war can be ended tomorrow if both parties agree to talk rather than fight. The US government must push both parties towards dialogue rather than placing meaningless and symbolic labels on one party or another.

KurdishMedia

Hoshiyar Zebari, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, stated, "We fully understand Turkish legitimate security concerns over PKK Terrorism across the border, and our government's position is very clear on that.” Zebari, a prominent KDP leader, a Kurd and the Iraqi Foreign Minister, was cited by Reuters on Monday.

The US is a helping hand in these attacks. “The United States is providing Turkey with real-time intelligence that has helped the Turkish military target a series of attacks this month against Kurdish separatists holed up in northern Iraq, including a large airstrike on Sunday,” reported Washington Post on Tuesday.

In the recent Turkish raid hundreds of civilians were displaced, at least one civilian was killed and a number of other civilians were injured. They also lost their possessions.

KurdishMedia.com

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) - Turkish troops who crossed into northern Iraq early on Tuesday have started withdrawing, said the office of Massud Barzani, president of Iraq's northern Kurdish government.

"They have started to withdraw back into Turkish territory," a statement said.

The statement said around 500 Turkish soldiers entered northern Iraq and remained in remote areas along the Iraq-Turkey border.

"There were no clashes," the statement said, referring to some media reports that the Turkish soldiers had clashed briefly with the peshmerga forces of Iraqi Kurdish region.

The Turkish incursion into northern Iraq came two days after Ankara's warplanes bombed several villages along the border targeting the rear-bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PKK is fighting for a self-rule in southeastern Turkey and more than 37,000 people have died from both the sides since the conflict broke out in 1984.

Iraq's Kurdish leader has refused to meet the US secretary of state because of US tolerance of recent Turkish raids into Iraq, Kurdish officials say.
Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani had been scheduled to meet Condoleezza Rice in Baghdad.

Kurdish officials said it was "unacceptable" the US had "authorised Turkey to bomb our villages" on Sunday.

The bombing of bases of PKK rebels was followed by an incursion into Iraq by about 300 Turkish troops.

The troops are now reported to have withdrawn.

Rice caution

Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said: "It was decided that Massoud Barzani would go to Baghdad to take part in a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and other officials, but he will not go now as a sign of protest against the American position on the bombings by Turkey.

"It is unacceptable that the United States, in charge of monitoring our airspace, authorised Turkey to bomb our villages," he said.

Iraqi officials have said Turkish planes hit 10 villages, killing one woman, while the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has reported seven deaths.

On Tuesday, some 300 lightly armed Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq, a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga security forces told the BBC.

He said the soldiers moved up to three kilometres (1.9 miles) inside Iraq in an area called Seeda Kan - in the triangle between Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

Fouad Hussein, chief of staff of President Barzani, said the troops withdrew less than 24 hours after the incursion.

"The Turkish force that entered is no longer there," Mr Hussein told Reuters.

The incursion was believed to be the first major Turkish troop deployment in Iraq since Turkey's parliament voted in October to allow the military to launch cross-border operations to combat the PKK.

Ankara accuses PKK rebels of using bases inside Iraq to launch attacks on Turkey.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul was quoted by Turkish media as saying the army was doing "what is necessary".

Ms Rice said that Iraq and Turkey had a "common interest" in stopping PKK Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

Speaking in Baghdad, she also cautioned against taking any action that could destabilise the region.

Ankara has massed up to 100,000 troops near the mountainous border with northern Iraq, backed by tanks, artillery and warplanes.

Iraq and the US previously urged Turkey not to carry out its threat.

As many as 3,000 PKK members are believed to be based inside northern Iraq. Turkey has accused the local Kurdish authorities of supporting them.

BBC

CAIRO (AP)--Human rights groups Tuesday called for the release of two Iranian women activists jailed after they took part in a campaign to end gender discrimination.

The women, Jelveh Javahari and Maryam Hosseinkhah, are scheduled to appear in court this week in Tehran on charges stemming from their involvement in the One Million Signatures Campaign to End Discrimination Against Women and a March 4 demonstration protesting the prosecution of other women's rights activists, Human Rights Watch said.

Iranian officials couldn't be reached Tuesday and have not released any information about the cases against the two women.

"There seems to be no end in sight to the Iranian government's persecution of women's rights activists," said New York-based HRW's Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson, in a statement. "They are bringing new charges against women faster than they can try them."

HRW and the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said the two women have been held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, Hosseinkhah since Nov. 17 and Javahari since Dec. 1

After appearing before an Iranian court, Hosseinkhah was charged with disturbing public opinion and publishing lies, HRW said. She was transferred to Evin after she could not post bail equivalent to about $100,000, the rights group said.

Javahari appeared before a branch of the same court about two weeks later and was charged with disturbing the public opinion, propaganda against the order and publishing lies, rights groups said. She was transferred to Evin prison and initially had a bail equivalent to about $50,000 but that was later withdrawn, HRW said.

Javahari's trial is set to begin Tuesday and Hosseinkhan's Wednesday, HRW said. There was no immediate information available on Javahari's court appearance.

Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders also said Iranian authorities have closed 24 Internet cafes and arrested 23 people, including 11 women, during a police operation in Tehran Sunday.

The raids were part of a reinforcement of a campaign that began in the spring against people who violated Iran's Islamic dress code, the group said. Authorities have advised Iranian women not to wear "Western-style" clothing including tight pants and high boots.

Iran's Islamic law imposes some tight restrictions on women. They need a male guardian's permission to work or travel. Women are not allowed to become judges, and a man's court testimony is considered twice as important as a woman's.

Despite such restrictions, Iranian women have more rights than their counterparts in Saudi Arabia and some other conservative Muslim countries. They can drive, vote and run for most public posts.

ANKARA (Reuters) - A military court on Tuesday remanded in custody the leader of Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party over charges that a fake health report enabled him to avoid military service, his party said.

The ruling puts fresh pressure on the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which is facing the prospect of being closed down in a separate court case after prosecutors charged it with ties to outlawed Kurdish guerrillas.

The court decision came after police detained DTP leader Nurettin Demirtas, 35, on Monday night as he disembarked from his plane in Ankara after flying in from Germany.

"Our party has become a target... Those engaged in politics should not have their path blocked," former DTP leader Ahmet Turk told a news conference.

Demirtas, who is not a member of parliament but was elected head of the party last month, had been abroad since November 18 and his party said the decision to detain and arrest him was unjustified.

"The leader of an opposition party should not be subject to this treatment. He must be released immediately. In democratic terms it is unacceptable," Osman Baydemir, DTP mayor in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, told reporters.

Demirtas' arrest came as Turkish and Iraqi officials said Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq overnight in a small-scale raid against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas, to whom prosecutors say the DTP is linked.

The DTP has 20 members of parliament and seeks autonomy for mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey. The party denies any links to the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Turkey.

CNN Turk television has said Demirtas was one of 183 people being tried on charges of using fake health reports in order to avoid military service, obligatory for all healthy Turkish men.

Prosecutors are seeking a 2-5 year prison sentence for the DTP leader, who rejects the charge.

It was not clear when he had been scheduled to perform his military service.

(Reporting by Selcuk Gokoluk and Daren Butler)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Pentagon report to be released Tuesday will accuse Iran of continuing to funnel weapons and technology to fighters in neighboring Iraq even as it cites lower violence overall, US media said.

Fewer fatalities among US and Iraqi troops and wider installation of basic services such as electricity are to be among the positives cited by the US military assessment of Iraq, the Wall Street Journal said citing officials familiar with the report to be given to Congress.

The report "also will reiterate US accusations that Iran is sending sophisticated explosives, rockets and mortars into Iraq," the newspaper said.

"It's not arguing that Iran's behavior is getting worse, but it's also not arguing that Iran's behavior is getting better," the report quoted one US officer as saying.

The assessment was also to highlight political instability and the difficulties faced by the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

US commanders have in the past accused Iran of providing covert support to Iraq extremists, but amid a sharp reduction in violence in recent weeks they have said the alleged support appears to have ended.

Iran has consistently denied providing Iraqi militias with funding or training.

By YAHYA BARZANJI
Associated Press Writer

KIRKUK, Iraq - The Turkish army sent soldiers about 1.5 miles into northern Iraq in an overnight operation on Tuesday, Kurdish officials said. A Turkish official said the troops were still in Iraq by midmorning.

To the south in Kirkuk(Khwakurk), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced visit to the city that Iraq's Kurds call their Jerusalem, an oil-rich territory claimed by many.

The troops crossed into an area near the border with Iran, about 75 miles north of the city of Irbil, said Jabar Yawar, a spokesman for Kurdistan's Peshmerga security forces.

About 300 Turkish troops crossed the border at 3 a.m., said Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the regional Kurdistan government. He said the region was a deserted mountainous frontier area.

A Turkish government official, speaking in Ankara on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed that around 300 Turkish soldiers penetrated into northern Iraq.

"They are still there," he said without elaborating.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment on reports of the Turkish operation.

On Sunday, Turkey conducted airstrikes against rebels from the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq. As many as 50 fighter jets were involved in the attack, the biggest against the PKK in years.

The Iraqi parliament on Monday condemned the bombing, calling it an "outrageous" violation of Iraq's sovereignty. Turkey said Sunday's attack used U.S. intelligence and was carried out with tacit American approval.

The PKK has battled for autonomy for southeastern Turkey for more than two decades and uses strongholds in northern Iraq for cross-border strikes.

Washington is trying to balance support for two key allies: the Turkish government and the Iraqi Kurds. Despite their apparent support for a limited raid, the U.S. remains firmly opposed to any major Turkish military operation into northern Iraq — which could disrupt one of the calmest areas of Iraq and run the risk of destabilizing the entire region.

Meanwhile, Rice was meeting members of a civilian-military reconstruction unit based in Kirkuk and provincial politicians. She was to meet Iraq's central leadership later in Baghdad.

Sunni Arabs ended a yearlong political boycott earlier this month in Kirkuk — the hub of Iraq's northern oil fields — under a deal that sets aside government posts for Arabs. It was the biggest step yet toward unity before a referendum on the area's future.

Kirkuk is an especially coveted city for both the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdish one in Irbil. Kurds want to incorporate it into their self-rule area, but the idea has met stiff resistance from Arabs and a constitutionally required referendum on the issue was delayed to next year.

Much of Iraq's vast oil wealth lies under the ground in the region, as well as in the Shiite-controlled south. Kurds control of the area's oil resources and its cultural attachment to Kurdistan have been hotly contested.

An Iranian court has jailed nine teachers for 91 days for encouraging colleagues to stage illegal protests, an Iranian newspaper reported on Monday. Seda-ye Edalat (The Voice of Justice) said the sentences were handed down in the western city of Hamedan.

It was unclear whether the teachers had served part of their sentences. Officials were not available for comment.

Some teachers have staged protests in Tehran and elsewhere over the past year demanding better pay and conditions.

by Shwan Mohammed

QANDIL, Iraq (AFP) - Turkey's bombardment of suspected PKK rebel rear-bases inside northern Iraq drew a furious response Monday from the Iraqi government and villagers hit by the air strikes.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said civilians had suffered in the bombings, despite Turkey's insistence that only Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) bases had been targeted.

"We understand Turkish concerns over the presence of PKK, but yesterday there was some collateral damages to civilians. ... such action must be coordinated with the Iraqi government," said Zebari, who did not give casualty figures.

Local officials said Sunday morning's bombardment had killed a woman and seriously wounded five other civilians as well as destroying schools and bridges in the foothills of the Qandil mountains.

"We all were asleep when the warplanes struck our village," said Hassan Ibrahim, 75, a farmer from the village of Qalatuqa along the Iraq-Turkey border.

"When the attack came I got out of the house. We were all suffocating because of the dust."

He said Turkish warplanes had been overflying the region for the past month.

"Earlier it was Saddam who destroyed our homes, now it is the Turks," an angry Ibrahim told AFP as he prepared to leave his home.

Turkish warplanes hit several villages along the border with Iraq as part of its military operation to target PKK rebel hideouts.

Witnesses said the bombings had razed dozens of buildings in Qalatuqa, including a soon-to-be-opened school building.

"I was shocked when I saw the school. It was completely razed to the ground," said Mahmud Mohammed, a building contractor.

"I had started building the school in 2004 and it was almost complete. We were soon going to inagurate it and now it is totally destroyed."

Asaka Abdullah, 40, said she woke up shocked with the noise of the bombings.

"I was asleep when the sound of the explosion woke me up. When I stepped out of my house I saw people fleeing barefoot," she said.

"We really have no choice but to flee to the mountains to escape the bombs."

The BBC, meanwhile, said on its news website that the US denied reports that Washington had approved the Turkish strikes.

On Sunday, Ankara's most senior general Yasar Buyukanit said the US gave its tacit consent for the operation by providing "intelligence" and opening up northern Iraqi airspace.

The BBC report quoted a US embassy official as saying US commanders had not approved the attacks, but had been informed before they took place.

The PKK is fighting for self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

More than 37,000 people have died on both the sides since the conflict broke out.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will not halt uranium enrichment even with delivery of fuel from Russia for its first nuclear power plant, a senior Iranian official said on Monday, adding he could not yet confirm Iran had received the fuel. The Russian state agency building the station said in a statement on Monday it had delivered the first fuel shipment for the Bushehr plant. Russia's Foreign Ministry said the move would create the conditions for Iran to suspend enrichment. The U.N. Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt enrichment, a process which the West believes Tehran is seeking to master so that it will have the ability to build nuclear weapons. Tehran insists its plans are peaceful. "There is no talk of halting enrichment. Nothing is related to freezing enrichment. The delivery (of fuel) is not in the framework of the (U.N.) resolutions or the framework of talks," the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. Asked if Iran would halt enrichment under any condition, he said: "No, not at all." The delivery of fuel is likely to have far-reaching diplomatic repercussions because the United States and other countries have urged Moscow not to despatch the fuel. (Reporting by Parisa Hafezi, writing by Edmund Blair)

Iran Focus

 Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that the United Nations Security Council is “unlikely” to adopt a third resolution imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its refusal to suspend its controversial nuclear work.

The Security Council and other nations are not willing to “bear the cost” of further sanctions against Tehran, Ahmadinejad told state television.

Earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Tehran to comply fully with successive Security Council resolutions requiring it to halt uranium enrichment.

Tehran has so far defied UN Security Council resolutions 1696, 1737, and 1747 calling on it to halt its uranium enrichment activities. Resolutions 1737 and 1747 have both imposed sanctions on Tehran in an effort to force the Islamic Republic to abandon its aggressive stance.

The US has denied that it approved Turkish air strikes against Kurdish terrorist targets in northern Iraq at the weekend.

Turkish warplanes dropped bombs early Sunday on targets allegedly linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), including the terrorist group's headquarters in the Kandil Mountains.

It was the first large-scale cross-border attack on the PKK's bases in the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq.

The US embassy in Iraq said commanders had not given permission for the attacks but had been informed that they would take place.

Some media reports suggested that the operation dealt a heavy blow to the PKK headquarters in the Kandil Mountains, on the Iraq-Iran border. The aircraft bombed 10 villages and the PKK reported seven people were killed.

The Turkish daily, Today's Zaman, quoted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who described the operation as a success.

"I am happy to say that according to our initial assessment, this operation, carried out under night conditions, was a success," Erdogan said.

"Our struggle (against the PKK) will continue inside and outside Turkey with the same determination."

Erdogan suggested that ground forces were also involved.

The aircraft hit the "regions of Zap, Hakourk and Avasin as well as the Kandil Mountains," the general staff said in a statement.

It did not say how many planes took part in the assault, but news reports put the number between 20 and 50 in an operation that lasted three hours.

They were reported to have taken off from air bases in the eastern provinces of Malatya and Diyarbakır as well as from other air bases located in western provinces of Turkey.

Iraqi Kurdish officials confirmed the attack and said several villages were also hit, killing one woman. But the Turkish military and the government said the operation was strictly targeted at the PKK targets and not against local people.

“You should trust statements made by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK),” said foreign minister Ali Babacan, in response to a question on whether the warplanes had struck settlements along the border.

Abdullah Ibrahim, a top local official in the Iraqi administrative center of Sangasar, said Turkish warplanes bombarded 10 Kurdish villages, killing one woman and injuring two others.

He acknowledged that there were PKK members in the area, but said they were far from the villages that were hit. “The villagers are now scared and are hiding in nearby caves. They lost all their property,” Ibrahim said.

Babacan said that Ankara was determined to use all means -- political, diplomatic, economic and military -- to fight the PKK.

“All of these instruments have been and will be used at the right time and in the right amount whenever it is necessary,” Babacan said before his departure for Paris for a Palestinian donors’ conference attended by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In October Turkey's Parliament voted to allow the military to launch operations into Kurdistan after several PKK attacks inside Turkey. Ankara has around 100,000 troops stationed near the mountainous border with northern Iraq.

Sunday’s attack came a month after the US promised to share intelligence with Turkey about the PKK. Turkish and US officials declined to comment whether American intelligence was used in the attack.
AKI

Iran has charged two women's rights activists with taking part in "terrorist" actions and belonging to a militant Kurdish separatist group, an investigating judge said on Sunday.

Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi were "arrested for acting against national security by taking part in attacks in Sanandaj and for being members of the militant group PJAK," the official IRNA agency quoted the judge as saying.

The Kurdish rebel group PJAK (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan), which is linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighting the Turkish army, has been behind a string of deadly attacks in northwestern Iran in recent months.

Iran's Kordestan, Kermanshah and West Azarbaijan provinces, which border northern Iraq, have substantial Kurdish populations. Sanandaj is the capital of Kordestan province.

The judge, whose name was not reported, said that the two women were using their activities as women's rights activists as cover for their connections to the separatist militants.

"Counter-revolutionary groups use civic groups to carry out terrorist actions," he said.

The two women were part of a nationwide campaign in Iran to collect a million signatures in favour of changing laws in the Islamic republic which are seen as discriminating against women.

"The arrest of these people has no link to the million signatures campaign. They were carrying out activities as part of the objectives of the PJAK group," the judge said.

"People have also been arrested in Tehran for having carried out acts in favour of PJAK under the cover of the million signatures campaign," he added, without giving further details.

The detention of Safarzadeh and Abdi had already triggered concern among Western rights groups but this was the first time their charges had been confirmed by the Iranian authorities.

AFP

NCRI - Iranian regime's State Security Forces (SSF) have closed down 24 Internet cafes and other coffee shops, arresting 23 people, state-run media reported on Sunday.

Colonel Nader Sarkari, a SSF official told IRNA news agency that only in the past 24 hours 435 coffee shops have been inspected, 170 had been warned and "23 people were detained", adding 11 of them were women.

"Using immoral computer games, storing obscene photos ... and the presence of women wearing improper hijab were among the reasons why they have been closed down," Sarkari said.

The cafe crackdown coincides with a new wave of suppression of women under the pretext of "improper dress".

According to a separate report SSF had inspected 275 restaurants in Tehran, of those 138 received a warning and 17 were shut down. The inspections included check compliance with a new ban on smoking water pipes, known in Iran as qalyan.

www.awene.com

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Five members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) were killed when Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebels in Iraq's northern region on Sunday, Kurdish sources told Xinhua.

The sources said the 5 PKK militants were killed when Turkish warplanes launched strikes on PKK targets in Zap, Avashin, Xakurk regions and Qandil Mountain.

Following Turkish air strikes in northern Iraq, many Kurdish villagers from Qandil Mountain areas evacuated to Sangasar district, said local Kurdish sources.

"So far 140 families were evacuated to Sangasar sub-district and the number is going to increase. The International Red Cross staff visited the displaced people to evaluate the situation."

Meanwhile, An Iraqi Kurdish woman was killed and six others were wounded when Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebels in Iraq's northern region on Sunday, a security source from Iraq's Kurdish regional government (KRG) said.

"According to our reports, the Turkish warplanes carried out air strikes on some villages near the border in the Qandil mountains at about 3:00 a.m. local time (GMT 2400 Saturday), killing a woman and wounding six people," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The attacks also damaged several houses and killed some 170 livestocks, the source said.

Earlier in the day, a statement issued by the Turkish General Staff posted on its Web site said the Turkish warplanes bombed the PKK targets in northern Iraq.

It said the warplanes hit PKK targets in regions bordering the Turkish territories as well as in Qandil Mountain, which is further away from the frontier.

The military operation was also backed by Turkish Land Forces' long-range weapons, it added.

The Turkish military has launched several cross-border attacks recently in a bid to fight separatist PKK rebels, who use northern Iraq as a launch pad for attacks against Turkey.

Security operations are underway in southeastern and eastern Turkey as 100,000 Turkish troops have massed along Turkish-Iraqi borders in preparations for possible cross-border operations to crush about 3,000-strong PKK rebels.

The PKK, listed by the United States and Turkey as a terrorist group, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the over-two-decade conflict.

BAGHDAD, Dec 16 (KUNA) -- The Iraqi government on Sunday protested Turkey's air strikes against Kurdish areas in northern Iraq earlier today.
Iraqi foreign undersecretary for legal affairs Mohammad Al-Haj Hammoud summoned the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad and handed him a protest letter after Turkish warplanes raided northern Iraqi villages in Sulaimaniya, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Turkish army has been intensifying its crack down on militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey and northern Iraq.
The ministry statement said the Turkish air strikes killed a woman, injured four others and displaced many families.
Hammoud demanded an immediate halt to the Turkish military operations.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police have closed down 24 Internet cafes and other coffee shops in as many hours, detaining 23 people, as part of a broad crackdown on immoral behaviour in the Islamic state, official media said on Sunday.

The action in Tehran province was the latest move in a campaign against fashion and other practices deemed incompatible with Islamic values, including women flouting strict dress codes and barber shops offering men Western hair styles.

"Using immoral computer games, storing obscene photos ... and the presence of women wearing improper hijab were among the reasons why they have been closed down," Colonel Nader Sarkari, a provincial police commander, said.

Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005, promising a return to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, hardliners have pressed for tighter controls on "immoral behaviour".

Sarkari told the official IRNA news agency that police had inspected 435 coffee shops in the past 24 hours, and 170 had been warned.

The report did not make clear whether they were all Internet cafes, which have mushroomed in Iran over the past few years and are popular especially among young people. Police were not immediately available for comment.

"Twenty-three people were detained," Sarkari said, adding 11 of them were women.

Many young Iranians are avid users of the Internet, some using chat rooms to socialise with the opposite sex. Mingling between sexes outside marriage is banned and many Web sites considered unIslamic are blocked by the authorities.

The cafe crackdown coincides with a winter campaign against women wearing tight trousers tucked into long boots and other "improper dress" such as short overcoats and hats instead of scarves.

Enforcement of Islamic dress codes that require women to cover their hair and disguise the shape of their bodies has become stricter since 2005, following eight years of reformist rule.

Police regularly clamp down on skimpier clothing and looser headscarves in the summer, but usually for only a few weeks. This year the campaign has run into the winter.

Women found dressing inappropriately may be warned and repeat offenders can be taken to a police station and fined.

"Our people want their women to be able to go in the streets with respect and want their dignity to be protected," senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami told worshippers in Tehran on Friday. "Our people want the society to be morally clean."

In a separate campaign, IRNA said police had inspected 275 restaurants in the capital to check compliance with a new ban on smoking in public places. The ban includes water pipes, known in Iran as qalyan, offered in some outlets.

Of those, 138 received a warning and 17 were shut down, police official Mohammad Reza Alipour said.

by Shwan Mohammed

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AFP) - Turkish planes bombed northern Iraq on Sunday targeting Kurdish rebels, in at least the second such operation this month even as Ankara held back from launching a ground assault.

"According to our preliminary reports, eight Turkish warplanes bombed some villages along the border near the Qandil mountains early today," said Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish militia that provides security in north Iraq.

Yawar said the air strikes damaged some bridges connecting villages near the Qandil mountains.

"Some familes are fleeing from the villages attacked today. We have dispatched our border teams to check the casualties and damage," he said.

But Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan denied that any civilian areas had been hit.

"You should trust statements made by the Turkish armed forces," Babacan said in televised remarks.

The Turkish general staff said that warplanes had hit the "regions of Zap, Hakurk and Avasin as well as the Qandil mountains".

The rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a deadly insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984, maintains a network of rear-bases in the rugged Qandil mountains near where the borders of Iraq, Iran and Turkey meet.

The rebel group itself said the strikes lasted eight hours.

"An air strike by scores of warplanes and artillery attacks took place against PKK positions," the group said in a statement on its Internet site adding that the raid followed a month of reconnaissance flights by US planes.

The Turkish military said the bombardment began at 1:00 am (2300 GMT) and all its aircraft had returned safely to base by 4:15 am (0215 GMT). Artillery continued to pound the targets once the planes had left.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed a "successful" operation.

"Last night, the Turkish armed forces carried out a comprehensive air strike against targets of the terrorist organization in northern Iraq," he said in a televised speech.

"I am satisfied to say that, according to our preliminary evaluations, the operation, undertaken under night conditions, was successful."

Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek warned Turkey would carry out more cross-border strikes if necessary.

"Such operations will continue if need be," the Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying.

"The government, working in harmony with all state institutions, primarily the armed forces, is determined to take this scourge off the country's agenda."

The air strikes were at least the second Turkish operation against the PKK inside Iraq this month, Turkish helicopters pounded suspected rebel rear-bases on December 1.

The Turkish parliament gave the army authorisation to launch cross-border operations in October but Ankara has so far held back from any ground assault amid strong lobbying by Washington.

The vote by MPs followed a PKK ambush against Turkish troops in which 12 soldiers were killed and eight captured. The captives were released in November.

The United States has expressed concern that any ground incursion might unsettle the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq which is the most stable area of the country.

But Turkey has warned Iraq that it reserves the right to resort to a ground assault.

In recent weeks Turkey has deployed around 100,000 soldiers along its 380-kilometre (235-mile) border with Iraq.

Baghdad has promised to rein in the PKK, and in early November President George W. Bush said Washington would provide Ankara with "real-time" information on rebel movements from its satellites.

The United States, like the European Union, blacklists the PKK as a terrorist organization.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since the rebels took up arms against Ankara in 1984, drawing a scorched earth response from the military in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

Kurds straddle the borders between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey and form significant minorities in all four countries.

U.N special envoy to Iraq said Iraqi leaders from Baghdad reached an agreement, with the approval of both Federal and Kurdistan regions government, to extend the implementation deadline of article 140 related to normalization of Kekuk province.

In a statement issued Sunday, U.N envoy to Iraq said Kurdish government and federal governments approved an agreement the leaders from Iraqi presidency reached over extending the implementation of the article six months, starting from January 2008.

But the Kurdish government stressed on the necessity to start the implementation right with the start of the new deadline.

“The technical and logistical problems were behind the extension” the statement claimed, adding that the U.N envoy would provide financial support for the works on the article.

The U.N envoy also thanked the Iraqi government trust on U.N ability to take charge of that “potentially important and encouraging” mission.

The envoy also expressed relief over the agreement the Iraqi leaders reached in that respect.

Implementing Article were supposed to have finished in 13 December of 2007, but problems rose by the Iraqi government slowed down the process and now the task put on U.N shoulder to settle.

MOSUL, Iraq, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- A Kurdish woman was killed and six other people were wounded when Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebels in Iraq's northern region on Sunday, a security source from the Kurdish regional government (KRG) said.

"According to our reports, the Turkish warplanes carried out air strikes on some villages near the border in the Qandil mountains at about 3:00 a.m. local time (GMT 2400 Saturday), killing a woman and wounding six people," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The attacks also damaged several houses and killing some 170 ofthe villagers' livestock, the source said.

Turkish artillery also shelled villages of Zeiwah, Garah and Palokah inside Iraq near the border in Duhuk province, witnesses said.

They said that the bombardment caused no casualties as the villagers had previously left their villages since the start of the crisis between the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and Turkey.

Earlier in the day, a statement issued by the Turkish General Staff posted on its Web site said the Turkish warplanes bombed the PKK targets in northern Iraq.

It said the warplanes hit PKK targets in regions bordering the Turkish territories as well as in Qandil Mountain, which is further away from the frontier.

The military operation was also backed by Turkish Land Forces' long-range weapons, it added.

The Turkish military has launched several cross-border attacks recently in a bid to fight separatist PKK rebels, who use northern Iraq as a launch pad for attacks against Turkey.

Security operations are underway in southeastern and eastern Turkey as 100,000 Turkish troops have massed along Turkish-Iraqi borders in preparations for a possible cross-border operation to crush about 3,000-strong PKK rebels.

 The PKK, listed by the United States and Turkey as a terrorist group, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the over-two-decade conflict.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran will allow an American woman to travel to Tehran to get information about her husband, a former FBI agent who was last seen at a resort island off the country's southern coast, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

"A visa was granted to her and there will be no problem for her presence in Tehran," ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said. He said he did not have information about exactly when Christine Levinson planned to arrive in Iran and what her schedule would be while here.

The U.S. State Department has said Levinson planned to visit Tehran this month to press the Iranian government about her husband's case.

She has said she would travel with her 22-year-old son, Daniel, to Tehran in mid-December and would stay about one week. Hosseini did not mention her son in his comments.

Robert Levinson, of Coral Springs, Fla., was last seen March 8 on Kish Island where he had gone to seek information on cigarette smuggling for a client of his security firm.

Levinson, 59, a father of seven, was an FBI agent in New York and Florida until he retired in 1998.

His wife believes he is in Iran because his name has not shown up on any flight manifests of planes leaving the country and his passport has not been used anywhere.

Iran says it has informed U.S. officials through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which looks after American interests in Iran, that Iranian authorities have conducted an investigation, but do not know what happened to Levinson.

ANKARA (AFP) - More than 20 Turkish planes took part in air strikes early Sunday against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, Turkish media reported.

Without citing sources, the CNN-Turk news channel put the number of planes at more than 20 while the NTV news channel said that some 50 planes had taken part.

NTV said the fleet included warplanes as well as support planes, such as tanker planes for refuelling.

The Anatolia news agency said "many F-16 fighter jets", equipped to carry out night-time missions, took off from a military base in Diyarbakir province in southeastern Turkey and returned about three hours later.

The Turkish general staff confirmed the air strikes in a written statement on its Internet site, but gave no figures as to how many planes were involved in the operation.

By SUZAN FRASER
Associated Press Writer

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish warplanes hit Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq early Sunday, Turkey's military said, the first such attack since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. An Iraqi official said the planes attacked several villages, killing one woman.

Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek urged Kurdish separatists to surrender and said Turkey would press ahead with operations against rebel bases in northern Iraq "with determination when necessary."

The attack came a month after the United States promised to share intelligence with Turkey about the Kurdistan Workers Party, which seeks autonomy for the Kurdish minority in southeastern Turkey and has hideouts in northern Iraq.

But the U.S. and Iraq have urged Turkey to avoid a major operation against PKK bases in northern Iraq for fear of destabilizing the most stable region in the country. Turkey has massed tens of thousands of Turkish troops along the border with Iraq amid a series of attacks by Kurdish insurgents.

The fighter jets hit rebel close to the border with Turkey and in Qandil mountain further away from the frontier, the military said in a statement on its Web site. It said the operation was directed against the PKK and not against the local population.

All planes returned to their bases safely and the army continued firing on the targets with long-range weapons, the military said. Artillery units fired shells toward Iraq from the town of Cukurca, where the borders of Turkey, Iran and Iraq meet, footage from the private Dogan news agency showed.

Private NTV television said some 50 warplanes were involved in the airstrikes, taking off from bases in eastern and western Turkey.

It was Turkey's first confirmed attack with fighter jets against rebel targets across the border since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Last month, Iraqi officials said Turkish helicopter gunships attacked abandoned villages inside Iraq.

A top Iraqi official said Turkish warplanes bombarded 10 Kurdish villages, killing one woman and injuring two others.

Abdullah Ibrahim, a top local official in the administrative center of Sangasar, acknowledged that there were Kurdish rebel bases in the area, but said they were far from the villages that were hit.

"The villagers are now scared and are hiding in nearby caves. They lost all their properties," Ibrahim said.

An Iraqi army officer with the border guard said the attack began about 2:30 a.m. on three villages in Iraq's Qandil mountain chain, where Turkish and Iranian Kurdish rebels are based. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

The villages are scattered in the Qandil mountains, some as far as an hour's drive apart over steep roads and paths. The region that was attacked was about 105 miles from the Turkish border.

The Turkish military vowed to press ahead with operations against the PKK "according to military needs with determination."

Earlier this month, the military said it fired on a group of about 50 to 60 PKK guerrillas inside Iraqi territory, inflicting "significant losses."

Turkish forces have periodically shelled suspected rebel positions across the Iraqi border, and have sometimes carried out "hot pursuits" — limited raids on the Iraqi side that sometimes last only a few hours.