TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's official news agency says dozens of hardline students have broken into the British Embassy residence in Tehran.

The IRNA agency says the students accuse Britain of supporting Israel's air assault on the Gaza Strip.

According to the agency, the students stormed the compound Tuesday evening and pulled down the British flag.

IRNA says the students then hoisted a Palestinian flag at compound's entrance before police forced them to leave.

The news agency says the break-in lasted about an hour and that the area is now calm. No injuries were reported.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called for an immediate cease-fire by both Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Iranian Resistance condemns bombing and killing of innocents in Gaza and calls for eviction of Iranian regime ruling religious fascism from the region

NCRI-The Iranian Resistance strongly condemns Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip and the killing of innocent civilians, in particular women and children. It mourns with the Palestinian people, especially with the relatives of those who have perished.

The Iranian Resistance also calls on the international community to condemn the warmongering and fundamentalist meddling in Palestine by the religious fascism ruling Iran. The mullahs’ ruling Iran are benefiting the most from this conflict and the crisis brewing in the region.

Facing fierce resentment and isolation at home, the mullahs’ regime believes that it can prolong its existence by exporting terror and fundamentalism abroad and taking advantage of the situation in Palestine and dominating the region. The mullahs’ strategy in the region revolves around opposition to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Palestinian government and President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as disintegration and division of Palestine. The regime has been the main obstacle to the goals and legitimate demands of the Palestinian people over the past three decades.

The Iranian Resistance urges all regional governments, political parties, and political, cultural and religious figures to create a united front against fundamentalism and evict the mullahs’ regime in particular from Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq.

The Widespread Practice of Female Circumcision in Iraq's North Highlights The Plight of Women in a Region Often Seen as More Socially Progressive.

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service

TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq

Sheelan Anwar Omer, a shy 7-year-old Kurdish girl, bounded into her neighbor's house with an ear-to-ear smile, looking for the party her mother had promised.

There was no celebration. Instead, a local woman quickly locked a rusty red door behind Sheelan, who looked bewildered when her mother ordered the girl to remove her underpants. Sheelan began to whimper, then tremble, while the women pushed apart her legs and a midwife raised a stainless-steel razor blade in the air. "I do this in the name of Allah!" she intoned.

As the midwife sliced off part of Sheelan's genitals, the girl let out a high-pitched wail heard throughout the neighborhood. As she carried the sobbing child back home, Sheelan's mother smiled with pride.

"This is the practice of the Kurdish people for as long as anyone can remember," said the mother, Aisha Hameed, 30, a housewife in this ethnically mixed town about 100 miles north of Baghdad. "We don't know why we do it, but we will never stop because Islam and our elders require it."

Kurdistan is the only known part of Iraq --and one of the few places in the world--where female circumcision is widespread. More than 60 percent of women in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq have been circumcised, according to a study conducted this year. In at least one Kurdish territory, 95 percent of women have undergone the practice, which human rights groups call female genital mutilation.

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NCRI - The mullahs' inhuman regime hanged in public a man identified as Abdolrahman Baluch Zehi in the southeastern city of Nikshahr, reported the official daily Kayhan on Monday.

To avoid public abhorrence for its cruel punishments, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, mullahs' chief of judiciary on January 31 issued a directive banning all public executions.  

Separately, a 31-year-old prisoner named Alireza was hanged in the northwestern city of Ardebil on December 27.

The ruling criminals in Iran have turned to public hangings to terrorize the public and combat rising popular uprisings. 

The Iranian Resistance calls on all international human rights organizations, in particular, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to refer the mullahs' human rights dossier to the UN Security Council for adopting binding measures against it.  

The Kurdsat channel on Monday deeply shocked upon spreading the news of losing its prominent broadcaster Mrs. Leyla Ali in tragic death accident took place in her house.

Leyla was a writer, excellent news caster and experienced manager of a children association here in Sulaimani. She had been working in front of the screen since early 1997, starting from the local Khak television, where she served as news reporter.

And alongside Khak, Leyla worked in Kurdsat channel for more than 8 years and become an expert in special interviews with the high profile figures and news analyst.

Leyla also has left books written on the variety of topics, especially women.

Born from a prominent revolutionary Kurdish family in 1970, Mrs. Leyla had B.A degree in nursing College of Baghdad University and statistics and computing of Sulaimani University. Her interest in media made shifted her course of carrier towards that world, in which she managed to perform incredibly.

On Tuesday, Leyla was engraved in a special funeral attended by many senior Kurdish officials and crowds of Sulaimani residents.

KURDSAT

Kurdistan region presidency called the Turkmen front bloc of Kirkuk not to set preconditions for any possible meetings with Kurdistan region because they are not accepted by the region.

In his D visit to Kirkuk meetings with its different ethnic groups, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani had proposed the Turkmens to meet with Kurdistan region president to end the problems stand still since the fall of Saddam.

The Rurkmen front expressed willingness to meet hold meetings with president Barzani, but they lately set preconditions for their meeting, including cancelling article 140 and compensating the group for closing their headquarter in Erbil.

Kurdistan region presidency chief of staff Fuad Hussein said such preconditions would not serve the attempts made to forge an agreement to come up with positive results on Kirkuk.

“Kurdistan leadership doors have always been kept open for any sort of mutual discussions and exchanging attitudes, but without setting preconditions” Shif of staff said in a statement posted on KRP website on Monday.

The statement also described those who set preconditions for talks want to remain the problems unsolved, asserting that President Barzani approval on the meeting came to respect the proposal of president Talabani in that regard.