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Hasan Faraji, 31, was arrested by Azerbaijani police after displaying “suspicious behavior” while wandering around the Israeli embassy in Baku on October 31. Faraji, who resisted arrest, was sentenced to 30 days of administrative detention, according to the APA news agency. According to Channel 10, Faraji is a part of the Iranian Quds Forces, a special unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that, among other oles, is tasked with planning and executing terrorist attacks against Israeli targets overseas. On Thursday an Iranian diplomat said Faraji denies he was planning any attack... Iranian embassy officials met Faraji in custody... Azerbaijani police raided...

"..................Jarrett’s official job description is “somewhat vague,” Becker writes, noting that at least part of her role is to serve as “chief liaison to the business community, state and local governments, and the professional left,” but her influence is undeniable. She commands a staff of nearly three dozen and has a hand in decisions ranging from the invitation list to state dinners and what gifts to give foreign leaders, to who should be nominated to the Supreme Court, appointed to a vacant ambassadorship, or awarded the President Medal of Freedom. When Warren Buffett visits to the White House for lunch,...

A Toronto-bound flight was stopped shortly before departure from Caracas when four Iranians and an Afghan were found aboard with fake tickets and no visas, Venezuelan officials said Saturday. The captain of Air Canada Flight 075 discovered there were five extra passengers aboard his flight as it was scheduled to depart late Friday, said Luis Graterol, the head of the Simon Bolivar Maiquetia International Airport. All those on board were forced to disembark and military officials identified the suspicious passengers, Graterol told the state-run Venezuelan News Agency. The Iranians and the Afghan "did not have a visa to enter Canada,...

An innocent man was viciously beaten and then burned to death by vigilante neighbours who wrongly believed rumours that he was a paedophile. Bijan Ebrahimi, a keen gardener, had taken photographs of youths vandalising his hanging baskets and intended to hand them to police as evidence. ...

Iran’s supreme leader promises in a newly released audiotape the destruction of Israel and Palestinians’ return to that land. Fars News Agency, an outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards, last week posted an audiotape of excerpts of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speeches to Palestinian officials and others with a title “Palestine will surely become free.” In the audiotape, which is partly in Arabic, Khamenei gives blessings to those who fight against Israel and says, “Peace be upon the children of our nation, peace be upon the brave jihadists in Palestinian and Lebanese resistance. Today the Islamic world and the whole world...

CNN said it did not mistranslate Iranian President Hassan Rowhani’s comments about the Holocaust to make him sound more moderate during a Tuesday interview with Christiane Amanpour, contradicting a report that ran in Iran’s state-run news agency. According to the government-run Fars News service, CNN mistranslated Rowhani’s statements and downplayed his suggestion that the Holocaust was not an historical fact. CNN told the Washington Free Beacon that the translator who worked on the interview was actually hired by the Iranian government. According to the Fars News translation of Rowhani’s CNN interview, the Iranian president did not use the term “Holocaust,”...

President Obama acknowledged in an ABC interview Sunday that he has been exchanging letters with Iranian President Hassan Rowhani. Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he has communicated with Iran’s leaders in “indirect ways.” “Have you reached out personally to the new president?” Stephanopoulos asked. “I have,” Obama replied, “and– and he’s reached out to me. We haven’t spoken– directly. But–” 1 inShare 3 President Obama acknowledged in an ABC interview Sunday that he has been exchanging letters with Iranian President Hassan Rowhani. Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he has communicated with Iran’s leaders in “indirect ways.” “Have you...

On Saturday, CBS News reported on the elections in Iran – by comparing the mullahs to the Tea Party. Reporter Elizabeth Palmer said, discussing the new president, Hassan Rahjani, “Well, he was seen as the most reform-minded of all the candidates who ran this time, that being said, they were all very conservative. In US terms it was as if all the candidates for the presidency came from the Tea Party.”

In a statement, press secretary Jay Carney says the U.S. respects the Iranian election and congratulates the Iranian people. "We have seen the announcement by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran that Hojjatoleslam Doctor Hassan Rouhani has been declared the winner of Iran’s presidential election. We respect the vote of the Iranian people and congratulate them for their participation in the political process, and their courage in making their voices heard. Yesterday’s election took place against the backdrop of a lack of transparency, censorship of the media, Internet, and text messages, and an intimidating security environment that limited...

SNIPPET - quote: www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl1955.aspx Treasury Announces New Sanctions Against Iran Actions Target Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Proliferation Activities 5/23/2013     WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury is taking action today against 20 individuals and entities for their involvement in Iran’s nuclear and missile proliferation networks and Iran’s continued attempts to circumvent sanctions. These networks are responsible for moving supplies and providing essential services to Iran’s clandestine nuclear and weapons programs. These actions are designed to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by tightening sanctions against Iran’s energy sector and exposing key proliferation related networks that span the...

Canada to announce arrests after thwarting "major terrorist attack":CBCR Reuters – 19 mins ago TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian police and intelligence agencies are to announce multiple arrests on Monday after an operation to thwart a "major terrorist attack," the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said on Monday, citing unnamed "highly placed" sources.

KATHMANDU SNIPPET: The Annapurna Post vernacular daily reported on Sunday that the arrest was made on April 13. Identified as Mohsin Khosravian, the suspect is currently in police custody.

 The security officials at the Embassy speculated that the suspect was scouting the facility with a harmful intention "for he carried a tourist map of the Lazimpat area" where the Israeli mission is located. 

He had stayed in a Thamel-based hotel. After his arrest, the suspect told police that he had ventured out to find out a shop to repair his laptop.

 According to the report, the Nepal Police's Central Bureau...

An Iranian citizen has been arrested for spying on Israeli sites in an apparent search for a target, Channel 2 news reports. The man was found to be in possession of a false Israeli passport. He had received the false passport in Malaysia and had successfully used it to enter Nepal and Sri Lanka. He was seen by an Israeli as he spied on the Israeli embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal. He reportedly confessed to the suspicions against him.

Hassan Shateri, the Iranian general whose killing was reported last week, was actually slain last month in an alleged IAF airstrike that was said to have targeted a weapons convoy heading from Syria to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, Britain’s Sunday Times reported. Iran was quick last week to blame “mercenaries and supporters” of Israel for Shateri’s death, although it made no indication that he had been killed in the January airstrike. Tehran “will take revenge on Israel for the killing of a Quds Force general in Syria,” said Ali Shirazi, liaison for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the Revolutionary...

The head of Germany's Green party, Claudia Roth, is under fire for 'high fiving' the Iranian ambassador to Germany, Ali Reza Sheikh Attar. Akhtar is accused of massacring Kurds when he was governor of their region between 1980 and 1985. Let's go to the videotape. More after the video.

Panetta: Iranian Threat Spreads By JULIAN E. BARNES and ADAM ENTOUS In an exclusive interview with the Wall Street Journal Thursday, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta sited illicit arms trafficking by Iran for what he called a "dangerous escalation" of tensions. WSJ's Julian Barnes shares his take-aways from the exit interview. WASHINGTON—Defense Secretary Leon Panetta accused Iran's paramilitary force of an intensified campaign to destabilize the Middle East by smuggling antiaircraft weapons to its militant allies. Iran's export of so-called manpads—antiaircraft missiles that can be carried by a single person—represent what Mr. Panetta called a dangerous escalation. "There is no...

"IRAN SPY NETWORK 30,000 STRONG Pentagon report: Iranian intelligence linked to spying, terror attacks" SNIPPET: "Iran’s intelligence service includes 30,000 people who are engaged in covert and clandestine activities that range from spying to stealing technology to terrorist bombings and assassination, according to a Pentagon report." SNIPPET: "“MOIS provides financial, material, technological, or other support services to Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), all designated terrorist organizations under U.S. Executive Order 13224,” the report said. The spy service operates in all areas where Iran has interests, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Central Asia, Africa, Austria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, France,...

The Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo is reporting that a new computer virus is wiping out computer hard drives in Iran (Hat Tip: Sunlight). A mysterious new computer virus has infected Iranian computers and is completely wiping users’ hard drives, according to Iranian officials. The “efficient” virus is said to “wipe files on different drives in various predefined times” and cannot be detected by anti-virus software, Iran’s official Information Technology Organization revealed in a statement over the weekend. The malware does not appear to be as sophisticated as previous viruses that have targeted computers governing Iran’s nuclear program, according to...

A 52-year-old Highland Park father is one of two U.S. citizens charged with agreeing to sell missiles and other weapons to the Taliban for their use against American troops in Afghanistan, according to a complaint unsealed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan last week. Oded Orbach, born in Israel, was among seven men arrested in an international sting operation by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Paid informants posing as Taliban representatives conspired with the men to ship narcotics through West Africa — with a portion intended for the United States — and to use the proceeds to buy weapons for protecting Taliban-owned...

Iran’s government mouthpiece Press TV is panicking over the prospect of a defeat for President Barack Obama and warns that Mitt Romney will steal the election through “black-box” voting machines that "manufacture election outcomes.” It also charged that the polls – virtually all of which now show Romney in the lead or at least in a dead heat – are fraudulent. Press TV has picked up on some American website tweets that predict black Americans will riot if Obama loses. Obama is far from being a friend of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the prospect of a hawkish Republican candidate...