Posted on 02/20/2005 6:19:37 PM PST by freedom44
Top News Story
Osama bin Laden may be in Iran. One of the most senior American diplomats in Pakistan has said the US believes Osama may have been intercepted and detained against his will by Iranian agents while travelling along the border between eastern Iran, Balochistan and Afghanistan.
It is a journey already tried out in the past by several Al Qaeda members, may be even by Osama himself, and therefore considered safe, explains the diplomat, who agreed to talk on condition of anonymity.
According to the diplomat, the "Osama in Iran" theory already features in American intelligence reports Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan or Afghanistan. "Until last September we knew, we were sure, that he was in south Waziristan. Now we think Iran, or Yemen. These are the theories they are putting forward," he explained.
For this reason, the United States is no longer putting as much pressure on Pakistan for the military operations to continue in south Waziristan or to open up new fronts in other areas on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the diplomat said. "To open new fronts along the border risks destabilizing Pakistan and there is no reason to do that, given that we are no longer sure Osama is in that area."
The Yemen theory indicated that Osama had fled to the Gulf country, driven partly by the desire to personally head up the new Al Qaeda offensive across the border in Saudi Arabia. But the most convincing hypothesis, considering the climate of tension between Washington and Tehran over the nuclear issue, is surely the Iranian one. And this is the one the diplomat insists on pursuing.
In the past there has been talk of the possible presence of leading Al Qaeda figures in Tehran, in a militarized compound directly controlled by the Pasdaran (Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards corps).
Al Qaeda number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and one of Osama's sons are the most illustrious names rumoured to be held there. Some say the Al Qaeda men are kept in conditions of "genuine hospitality", while others say Tehran is enforcing an "obligatory stay" and keeping them "under surveillance".
A Daily Briefing of Major News Stories on Iran:
Where would one NOT look for him, for multitudinous reasons? Saudi Arabia.
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I posted some thing on this here at
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1346576/posts
As bad as we may think the reigning Monarchy is in Saudi Arabia they're far better than any Osama-led regime.
Employee's True Face Background of a Fox News Analyst
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1347566/posts
Here is what they say now (note that in can be interpreted that he is in custody but not arrested by Iranian security agents):
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=29859&NewsKind=CurrentAffairs
Bin Laden not arrested by Iran: Ramezanzadeh
Monday, February 21, 2005 IranMania.com
Related Pictures
LONDON, Feb 21 (IranMania) - Iran's Government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh dismissed the rumors that Iranian security agents have arrested Bin Laden and said such news were totally false and baseless.
Making the remarks in his weekly press briefing on Monday, he noted that the very truth that Americans have admitted failure to capture Bin Laden while claiming that Iranian security forces have managed to arrest him prove the capabilities of Tehran, IRNA reported.
Turning to another question concerning the Irancell contract, he said one of the foreign companies which has recently announced it will return to the deal once again had told one administrative official in the very beginning that it will not let the project to get to anywhere.
He believed raising such issues would give way to many doubts.
Can't believe anything he says.
OBL could be in custody or vacationing in a villa by the Caspian, or in a cave in Pakistan, or a thousand other places.
(there have been rumors of him working at 7-11 stores.) :~ )
The price paid for blogging Iran
BBC News
Feb 21, 05
Iran is becoming an increasingly dangerous place to keep an online diary.
Web logs have become a popular forum for dissent. And the Iranian government has responded by arresting dozens of bloggers.
Some of those detained are reportedly being held in solitary confinement and tortured.
Bloggers Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both currently in prison in Iran.
Mr Sigarchi has been in detention since 17 January while Mr Saminejad was first detained in November.
"Freedom of expression is really at stake at the moment," says Julien Pain, who runs the Internet Freedom Desk at the Paris based group Reporters without Borders.
"The Iranian authorities have been clamping down on regular media for a long time, but it's only in the last six months that they're harshly attacking cyber-dissidents and webloggers. It's really a serious situation."
Detention criticised
The Iranian government has not said explicitly that it is blogging that got Mr Sigarchi and Mr Saminejad into trouble.
However, both have used their blogs in the past to criticise the detention of other Iranian webloggers.
Iranian-born Hadi Ghaemi is following both cases for Human Rights Watch in New York.
"Major charges against Sigarchi included him giving interview to foreign radio, which is completely a violation of his right to free speech and expression," Mr Ghaemi says.
"He's being kept in a prison in the city of Rasht, which is his hometown in northern Iran. Bail for his release has been set at $200,000."
Mojtaba Saminejad has not fared much better, according to Mr Ghaemi.
"Saminejad was kept in solitary confinement for 88 days, and he was subjected to severe beatings and torture. He was briefly released on 27 January for a short time, but because bail had been set at $125,000, and he wasn't able to pay that, he was rearrested, and his conditions are unknown."
Wave of arrests
Mr Sigarchi and Mr Saminejad are only the latest cases in a wave of arrests that has meant jail for at least two dozen Iranian bloggers.
It is part and parcel of a broader crackdown on Iranian media that began in 2000.
When regular print outlets were censored, many Iranians turned to weblogging. In fact, weblogs have become a key form of communication in Iran.
It is estimated that there are some 46,000 bloggers in the country.
Sina Motallebi used to be one of them.
In 2001, Mr Motallebi was working as a columnist for a Tehran newspaper.
But the government began censoring his work, and so Mr Motallebi started a Farsi-language blog called Diaries of a Websurfer.
"I felt free and uncensored in my weblog," he says.
Political prisoner
That freedom, however, did not last. Iran's judiciary became concerned after Mr Motallebi posted an entry critical of the Iranian government's treatment of a well-known political prisoner.
Mr Motallebi was first summoned to court in the Autumn of 2001. Over the next year and half, he was summoned four more times.
The last time, in April of 2003, Mr Motallebi was arrested and thrown in jail.
"I spent 22 days in solitary confinement, and I was interrogated," he says. "I was under very, very severe psychological torture. Still, the effect of torture remains on my soul."
Mr Motallebi was released after a family friend posted $60,000 bail.
He managed to get a passport, and immediately fled to the Netherlands, where he sought and got asylum.
He is now working for the BBC's Persian Service in London.
He is not blogging now, but he remains concerned about the crackdown on bloggers in Iran.
"When they arrest ordinary webloggers, youngsters, people only 20 years old, everybody thinks, 'OK this could happen to me also'," he says.
"If you don't react to that, and show the Iranians that this could cost them in international relations, they could keep on doing that, and arrest all the people who wrote a single post criticizing the Islamic regime."
Human rights groups and bloggers are trying to help.
Reporters without Borders is trying to pressure Iranian officials to release all detained bloggers and cyber-dissidents.
The Association of Iranian Blogwriters, called Penlog, is demanding that the Iranian judiciary either formally charge Mojtaba Saminejad, or release him immediately.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4283231.stm
BUMP
Actually, I believe IRI when they deny some thing
**Students Protesting in Tehran**
Posted on 02/21/2005
by Khashayar
I am receiving confirmed reports of protests in Alameh university campus in TEHRAN now.
BBC Persian language service confirms the reports and posted a news story in Persian language on this.
A group of students are on strike in Tehran to ask for freedom of expression and release of all political prisoners.
They are protesting against the closure of newspapers, imprisonment of outspoken professors!
They demand support from the free world and the US! They support hunger strike of political prisoners.
There are multiple reports that Security forces have been trying to crush the protest and arrested a few of the leaders of the current protest in the name of action against national security.
The students claimed they want to be peaceful but they are threatened to be sent to prison.
There have been slogans against the regime leaders and judiciary system.
Reports confirmed by http://www.isna.ir , http://www.bbcpersian.com and http://news.gooya.com
Shia Mourning Ritual Turns Into Deadly Protest Demos
SMCCDI (Information Service)
Feb 21, 2005
The Shia mourning ritual of Moharam's "Sham e Ghariban", turned into deadly protest demos. At least 2 persons have been killed in the souhern City of Kerman while tens of other have been injured in the Capital and cities, such as, Esfahan and Mashad.
Many mourners sized the occasion for showing their rejection of the regime by playing the religious card and qualifying the current rulers of Iran as "those continuing the crimes of Yazid" (an Arab ruler responsible for the death of Hussein the 3rd Imam of Shias in Kerbala over 13 centuries ago).
Slogans against the regime leaders were shouted by the demonstrators who most of them are from deep religious families.
Some public materials and pictures of the regime's leaders were set on fire and several militiamen were injured during the clashes.
http://www.daneshjoo.org/smccdinews/article/publish/article_4348.shtml
It was not DEADLY as this SMCDDI always exaggerate. BUT police forces had to use force to scatter people.
WHY?
Because they are afraid of any kind of gathering in Iran.
They are afraid of their own people and As President Bush stated, it is a government that does not trust its own people.
How do you know no one died?
I thought we all knew that? I did.
How do they know any one died?
SMCCDI is always up to exaggeration to catch eyes.
Photos of Tehran in Sunday evening!
So you dont know, you just dont like SMCCDI.
You may be doing what you are accusing them of.
Be more careful.
Magnitude 6.4 - CENTRAL IRAN
60km NNW of Kerman
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1348302/posts
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