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The White House said Thursday that Iran's incoming president was a leader of the student movement that orchestrated the capture of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, but the United States still hasn't determined whether he took hostages as alleged by some of those who were held. Six former hostages have identified Iran's ultraconservative president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as one of their captors during the 444 days they were held. Bush said on June 30 that their allegation ``raises many questions.'' The U.S. government has been investigating since then. ``I don't think it should surprise anyone given the nature of the regime...

"As soon as I saw his picture in the paper, I knew that was the bastard," retired Army Col. Charles Scott, 73, a former hostage told the Times. "He was one of the top two or three leaders." Added Scott, "The new president of Iran is a terrorist." Scott is one of at least six former hostages who have stated that they believe the men are one in the same. This is being viewed as an issue that can further complicate an already very complicated situation, as the U.S. seeks to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons and from continuing...

In south Tehran there is a huge walled cemetery dedicated to the martyrs, the young men who died fighting in the 1979 revolution and the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. This vast city of the dead, complete with its own subway station and shops, does not share Arlington National Cemetery's sublimely stoic aesthetic of identical tombstones, row upon row. In Tehran's war cemetery, each of the fallen is remembered individually with his own martyr's shrine, a sealed glass cabinet on a stand. The cabinets are filled with faded photos of men forever young, some in helmets or red bandannas, some carrying...

N.C. Hearing Opens on 1979 Klan Killings By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago Signe Waller, right, is comforted by Cory Wechler, a friend, on stage as she reads her prepared statement, Friday, July 15, 2005, during the public hearing of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Greensboro, N.C. Waller was at the November 3, 1979 anti-Ku Klux Klan rally when a violent confrontation between Communist Workers Party members and the Ku Klux at Morningside Homes in Greensboro, left five CWP members dead, including her husband Dr. Jim Waller. (AP Photo/Lynn Hey) GREENSBORO, N.C. - The widow...

WASHINGTON - If the newly elected Iranian president turns out to have been a main participant in the holding of American hostages in Teheran, he won’t be the first top Iranian official with a role in the 1979 crisis. The current Iranian environment minister, Massoumeh Ebtekar, was the chief interpreter and spokeswoman for the radical students who took over the US Embassy and held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. Dubbed “Sister Mary” by the American press because her heavy head scarf resembled a nun’s habit, Ebtekar gave almost nightly interviews during the standoff, denouncing the hostages as spies and...

A photo has emerged which it is claimed links the President-elect of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the taking of 60 American hostages during the US embassy siege in Tehran in 1979. A London-based Iranian news agency which opposes Mr Ahmadinejad is circulating the photograph, which it says was taken by the Associated Press news agency on the first day of the hostage crisis. In the picture, a man which the Iran Focus agency claims it has identified as Mr Ahmadinejad, is seen holding the arm of a blindfolded US hostage. The possible role of Mr Ahmadinejad in the embassy takeover,...

TEHRAN, IRAN – The ritual burning of the US flag is not going to stop. Nor will the chants - especially on Iranian revolutionary anniversaries - of "Death to America." Unlike every other presidential candidate who hinted at a thaw in relations, to appeal to the majority of Iranians who say they want better US ties, hard-line president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran "has no significant need" for the US. But beneath the anti-US façade is a nation that has much in common with its stated nemesis - from an ambitious self-image and public reliance on the divine, to a habit...

Roya Hakakian's story of growing up Jewish during the Iranian Revolution. Revolution. Everything in Iran changed on February 1, 1979, the day Ayatollah Khomeini returned to our country a few days after the departure of the Shah. Suddenly, millions were demanding an end to 2,500 years of monarchy--including hundreds of young Jews who joined the revolution against the wishes of their elders, hoping to recast their identities as secular Iranians who could assimilate seamlessly into the fabric of the promised utopia. Khomeini quickly took on the status of an "imam," only a step away from prophet in the Shi'ite tradition,...

The Ten Commandments has had a place in Anglican catechesis since the first Book of Common Prayer (1549). Here is a portion of the form found in that Book:Question: You sayde that your Godfathers and Godmothers dyd promiyse for you that ye should kepe Goddes commaundementes. Tell me how many there bee.Aunswere: Tenne.Question: Whiche be they?Aunswere: Thou shalte haue none other Gods but me. II. Thou shalte not make to thyselfe anye grauen image, nor the likenesse of any thing that is in heaven aboue, or in the earth beneath, nor in the water under the earth: thou shalt not...

Traditional Anglican catechisms require candidates to memorize the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and to grasp the Anglican understanding of the Sacraments before being presented to the Bishop for Confirmation. This involves a commitment of time and effort consistent with the importance of Baptism and Confirmation. The Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Sacraments constitute the baseline of instruction in traditional catechisms. This piece is Part 1 in a series on the 1979 “Outline of Faith” and addresses only the use of the Apostles’ Creed in catechesis (religious instruction).First it should be noted...

On January 18 Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat, told a placard-waving anti-war crowd: "The greatest patriots of this country are here today...The president said it'd be a cold day in Washington before this country turns against this war, but it is a cold day in Washington and here we are." Apart from Conyers nasty insinuation people who disagree with his leftwing views about war against the genocidal Saddam are not patriotic, what can we deduce from his presence? Well, for one, Rep. does not like America and prefers the company of totalitarians to that of genuine democrats. And how...

A High-Risk Nuclear Stakeout The U.S. took too long to act, some experts say, letting a Pakistani scientist sell illicit technology well after it knew of his operation. By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year. Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes...

War brutalizes man, every afghan bears living testimony to this. If the landscape of Afghanistan bears the craters of the endless war, the political and military leadership in Afghanistan also carries war's indelible scars. It is important never to lose sight of this. Ahmed Shah Mas'ud was born to an army family in 1953 in the Panjshir Valley north of the Afghan capital Kabul. His father was a colonel in the Afghan Army and enrolled his son at Kabul's Lycee Istiqlal High School. Upon graduation Mas'ud joined Kabul's Polytechnic Institute. In 1973 King Zahir Shah was deposed and exiled by...

In 1979, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police. Lieutenant Commander Adolph Dubs ,United States Navy Foreign Service Officer(1920-1979) of Maryland. Born in Chicago, Illinois, August 4, 1920. Served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II; U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, 1978-79. Assassinated in Afghanistan, February 14, 1979. Interment at Arlington National Cemetery.

THE letters from Ian F M Saint-Yves and David Mellor (January 26) prompt me to give some information that might assist the general understanding of the present position in Iran. My work in Iran, from before the revolution in 1979 and over the last two years, gives me some little authority. In the late 1970s I was conducting seismic surveys relating to the stability of two sites, near the cities of Isfahan and Hamadan, for nuclear power plants. US companies such as Westinghouse were actively engaged and the whole effort was being strongly promoted by the US government. The Germans...

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FrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2004 Last Friday, Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, held an anti-American, anti-Israel demonstration. Protestors carried a large model of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and waved signs bearing slogans such as “US Hands Off Muslim Land.” But the most arresting image was of a Muslim woman carrying a large sign featuring the face of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Time dims memories. I wonder if any onlooker at the demonstration saw the Khomeini sign and remembered those tense days of the Iranian hostage crisis, when Khomeini’s regime violated the traditional sanctity of the embassy and held 50 Americans for month...

When the Americans go to the polls on Tuesday they would do well to remember two events that have altered their lives forever. The first was the raid on the US Embassy in Tehran, and the seizure of American hostages on Nov. 4, 1979. The second was the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against New York and Washington. The embassy seizure showed that Americans were no longer safe outside their homeland and that even diplomatic immunity would not protect them. The 9/11 attacks showed that the Americans were no longer safe even in their own homeland, and that no amount of...

IS IRAN - with oil-export revenues of more than US$30 billion (S$51 billion) expected this year - on its way to producing nuclear weapons that would threaten not only neighbouring Middle East enemies such as Israel but also European nations? Indeed, should it be allowed to do so? With growing unemployment among its young, and rising social tensions, can Iran afford to pursue the development of a nuclear arsenal? And even with proven crude oil reserves of more than 130 billion barrels, and daily production of some 4.2 million barrels, can Iran - a nation of 70 million overwhelmingly poor...

Primary Sources: The "Crisis of Confidence" Speech Jimmy Carter delivered this televised speech on July 15, 1979. Good evening. This is a special night for me. Exactly three years ago, on July 15, 1976, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for president of the United States. I promised you a president who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you. During the past three years I've spoken to you on many occasions about national concerns, the energy crisis, reorganizing the...