Iranian Alert -- March 16, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- Americans for Regime Change in Iran

Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

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Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin”

UNRESTS AND VIOLENCE CONTINUE IN SEVERAL IRANIAN CITIES

TEHRAN, 15 Mar. (IPS)

Violence and unrest continued in the small Caspian Sea resort town of Fereydoon Kenar for the third strait day with the local population fighting against Law Enforcement Forces and Basij volunteers backed by plainclothes men of Islamic vigilantes.

The unrest began on Saturday after angry voters protested to the leader-controlled Council of the Guardians that had invalidated the Parliament seat won by Mr. Meqdad Najaf Nezhad, a reformist candidate from the city in favour of Mr. Hojatollah Roohi, a pro-conservative runner in the rival constituency of neighbouring Babolsar.

As soon as the Guardians annulled the results obtained at three polling stations giving Mr. Najaf Nezhad the lead, people took to the streets, shouting slogans against the regime and some of its most senior leaders, set fire on the house of the Friday Preacher and buses and ransacked some government buildings, eyewitnesses reported.

Eyewitness reports suggest that as many as 5 people, including one Police officer have so far lost their lives and 100 to 200 were wounded in clashes with the security forces, with some of the injured refusing hospital care in order to avoid identification by the authorities.

"People blocked the entrance to Fereydoon-Kenar as security forces prepared to assault the town and suppress the demonstrations", one local journalist reported on condition of anonymity.

According to some unconfirmed reports, the Guardians wanted to revise their decision by proclaiming Mr. Najaf Nezhad as the winner, but people from Babolsar, backing their own candidate, namely Mr. Roohi, opposed them, refusing a suggestion from local dignitaries to take a new vote.

T"he protesters are not anti-regime. They think their rights have been violated and are asking the Guardian Council why that has happened", Mr. Mohammad-Ali Panjeh-Fouladgaran, the provincial governor, told the semi-official Iranian students news agency ISNA.

The last Iranian Legislative elections sparked controversy after the Guardians barred more than 2.000 candidates, most of them reformists and including one hundred lawmakers from running in the race held on 20 February.

As the unrest continued unabated in Fereydoon Kenar, Kurdish deputies at the outgoing Majles wrote a letter to the lamed President Mohammad Khatami protesting to the violence used by Revolutionary Guards and local basij forces against people celebrating the approval of a new interim Constitution for Iraq by the country’s Provisory Government.

"It was a very natural celebration by Iranian Kurds expressing solidarity with their Iraqi brothers", the letter said, referring to the interim Constitution that guarantees the Iraqi Kurds federal powers.

Inhabitants at Kurdish-dominated cities of Bookan, Mahabad, Baneh, Piranshahr and Paveh, all situated near the Iraqi borders were celebrating the new Iraqi Constitution when security forces and Revolutionary Guards attacked them, Kurdish lawmakers reported.

According to local sources, at least 34 people were rounded up after demonstrators, angry of being attacked, set fire on police stations and Guards garrisons.

ENDS FEREYDOON KENAR UNRESTS 15304

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Mar_04/fereydoonkenar_unrest_15304.htm

AZADI!!!

May God watch over the Iranian people and help them throw off the yoke of the Mullah's!!!

Underreported is an understatement. You are my only source of information regarding the situation in Iran. Thankyou.

Thank you for your service in posting this. The media will not cover this event because its too complicated for them. Like North Korea they cannot see it so they cannot feel it. The consequence is the the Iranian people suffer in silence.

I have been following this. Sometimes the less said the better. Can't you see the benefit of the old regime falling and a new one taking over with out the media noticing? I sure can. It's the story of the sly fox taking hold of the hen house. Do it and keep it low key. There will be the benifit of the surprise element. The less the media is involved the better it will be and you won't have to put up with the bullcrap people who are uninformed about what's going on. I would only get the world involved if you need help carrying it off.

Iran confirms U.N. nuke inspections can resume

16 March 2004
Reuters

TOKYO (Reuters) - Iran's chief nuclear negotiator confirmed on Tuesday that Tehran had agreed to let U.N. nuclear inspectors back into the country on March 27 without any conditions, ending a freeze that Washington had said was an attempt to hide a covert nuclear weapons programme.

"March 27 has been decided as the date," Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told a news conference in Tokyo, where he is meeting Japanese officials. "There are no conditions."

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei had said on Monday that Iran had informed him that it would allow nuclear inspectors to return on March 27.

ElBaradei, speaking in Washington, said he regretted the interruption in the inspections but believed the date set for resumption was "still within our time schedule".

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog condemned Iran on Saturday for suspending inspections. Iran said it had taken the step on Friday to show displeasure at the drafting of an IAEA resolution criticising it for failing to report sensitive research and development that, it argued, could have military use.

The decision to suspend inspections had left a number of diplomats who follow the agency mystified about Iran's motivation -- whether it was only a reaction to Saturday's resolution, a chance to buy time to hide undeclared activities, or an attempt to make it clear Tehran is the one in charge.

http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4574322

Israel Urges West to Keep Up Pressure on Iran

March 15, 2004
JTA News
Leslie Susser

JERUSALEM -- When Iran declared late last year that it was suspending development of programs that could produce nuclear weapons, skeptical Israeli officials eyed the move suspiciously.

Now, they say, Teheran’s mid-March postponement of international inspection of its nuclear plants confirms the suspicions that the Iranians simply are playing for time.

For Israel, the Iranian enigma is not academic: Israel’s cities are within range of Iran’s Shihab 3 missile, which is believed to be capable of delivering a nuclear payload.

The latest Iranian move, therefore, poses key questions for the Jewish state: What does Israel do if Iran continues developing nuclear weapons under a stop-start facade of cooperation with the international community? How does it go about independently verifying Iranian programs? How does it keep up international pressure on Iran without seeming to be pushing toward confrontation?

Some of those calls will be made by the Mossad intelligence agency, which has made coverage of Iran a top priority.

Still, Israeli officials believe that — in the near future at least — the battle with Iran will be diplomatic, and they are heartened by the fact that the United States and Europe are keeping up pressure on the Islamic republic to disarm.

Iran’s suspension of International Atomic Energy Agency inspections was seen as a warning to the IAEA board to tone down language censuring Iran for hiding evidence of materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons — or risk losing Teheran’s future cooperation.

If so, the warning seems to have worked.

U.S. officials wanted wording that could have paved the way for U.N. sanctions on Iran. But the final resolution included amendments that effectively defer any threat of U.N. Security Council action against Iran until the next IAEA board meeting in June.

Much of the current standoff revolves around advanced centrifuges that can be used for enriching uranium to the level used in nuclear weapons. Iran first failed to declare that it had such machines. It then argued that its agreement with the IAEA permitted the country to continue assembling centrifuges at a plant in Natanz as long as they weren’t used for uranium enrichment.

The Americans and Europeans, on the other hand, say the agreement proscribes any activity related to potential nuclear weapons development.

The most disturbing development was the recent discovery of traces of weapons-grade uranium on centrifuge components at the Natanz plant.

Israeli experts believe the Iranians might have bought the uranium in Russia or on the Pakistani-based nuclear black market and used the centrifuges to enrich it themselves. Others have a more innocent explanation: that the centrifuges were bought second-hand from Pakistan and came with traces of previously produced uranium.

For the Americans, though, the evidence was damning.

“We think it’s clear that Iran has not made any decision, any strategic decision, to abandon a nuclear weapons effort,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

That view is shared by the Israeli establishment, which makes a clear distinction between the commitments from Iran and from Libya — which recently pledged to end its own weapons of mass destruction programs.

“Libya and Iran are totally different cases,” said Ephraim Sneh, chairman of a key Knesset subcommittee on defense planning and policy. “Behind Libya’s announcement there is a genuine strategic decision by” Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi “to bring his country into the new world. The Iranians, as far as we know, are simply playing for time.”

Sneh believes that by pretending to stop their nuclear weapon projects, the Iranians hope to dupe the Europeans into providing previously withheld “dual-use” items — products designed for civilian use that can be modified and used in the manufacture of weapons.

Regardless of whether or not Iran reopens its facilities to international inspection, Israel’s plan is to monitor as closely as possible what the Iranians are doing.

Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who recently called the Iranian nuclear program the “gravest existential threat to Israel since the founding of the state,” has restructured the agency to focus exclusively on just two issues: global terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Coverage of Iran has been strengthened significantly.

But that doesn’t mean the Mossad is succeeding.

Neither the Mossad nor any other Western intelligence service detected the existence of the Pakistani nuclear black market in real time — even though its activities were only semisecret. The technology peddlers had to come into the open to look for potential clients, even providing printed brochures.

This major intelligence failure illustrates how difficult it is to monitor nuclear developments in a closed country as large as Iran — even more so if Iran makes permanent its temporary suspension of cooperation with IAEA inspectors.

But would Iran dare to go that far with the Americans on their doorstep in Iraq? Israeli analysts think not. They believe Iran soon will invite the inspectors back and try to string them along while clandestinely proceeding with nuclear programs.

The Israelis see their role here as quietly sounding the alarm to induce the Americans to carry out what is essentially U.S. policy: doing all they can to prevent “rogue states” like Iran from going nuclear.

Israeli officials are encouraged by the tough line the Americans and Europeans are taking with Iran. The Europeans, for example, are not yet providing Iran with the “easier access to Western technological aid” they promised if and when Iran fulfills its weapons of mass destruction commitments.

The Europeans first want to make sure the Iranian weapons program has been irretrievably scrapped. Until then, Israel will back fully the American policy to pressure rogue states rather than rely on international nonproliferation treaties that can easily be signed and then ignored.

Israeli officials believe the consistently tough American line could eventually lead to U.N. sanctions on Iran until a possible regime change in Teheran.

But judging by recent elections — in which the conservative hardliners made sweeping gains after disqualifying most opposition candidates — regime change in Tehran could be a long time coming.

(Leslie Susser is the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.)

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=13875&intcategoryid=1

Here I found some interesting stuff regarding the ancient customs in Iran.

They will have their New Year ceremonies from March 20th.

http://www.iranmania.com/nowrouz/day0.asp

For many people 'Haft Seen' just means putting seven objects beginning with 'S' in the Persian alphabet on a table. However, the roots of Haft Seen are actually far more spiritual and were not based on a letter of the alphabet and were not limited to seven objects! Below we look at the roots of this tradition and the symbolism of the the New Year Table.

The New Year laid tablecloth

In ancient Iranian traditions, in every celebration and ceremony, a table cloth (on a small table) was laid down.

On this table cloth apart from religious objects of blessing, such as a fire pot and Virsem’s angel, the season’s various food products and meals were placed. Eating this 'holy' meal was a tradition called MAYZAD and was recommended.

This arrangement was placed on a platform higher than ground level and the person assigned to distribution of the meal was called MIZADPAN which means the person who serves the meals (MIZBAN). Today MAYZAD by the use of the word MYZAD (or MYZ) and MAYZADPAN (or MIZBAN) are used in every day language.

The arrangement of objects on the tablecloth is special and has religious intonations and sacred numbers must be considered in such arrangements. Efforts were made to decorate the New Year’s tablecloth with the best and most precious plates, candle holders, and fire pots. This is still practiced in weddings and in mourning rituals and is considered as a religious activity.

Haft Seen, the phrase

In the Sassanid’s era, beautifully painted and precious plates made out of CAOLINE were imported into Iran from China. This was one of the precious commercial exchanges with China and the plates were later called after the name of their manufacturers and location of origin and thus they were called "Chiny". In other words they were also referred to as SINEE, which finds its root in Arabic language. "Chiney" or SEENEY, which means from china or Sina.

In Iran in order to differentiate between different imported plates from China, those which were made of metal were called "SINEE" and those made out of CAOLINE were called "Chinie".

In any case during the New Year’s celebrations these precious and picturesque plates from China were used on the New Year’s table. These plates were filled with sugar, candies and sweets and they were seven plates named after the seven AMSHASEPAND which included the months of Ordibehesht, Khordad, Amordad, Shahrivar, Bahman, Espandasmad and Ahooramazda. It was in this season that this tradition was referred to as seven SEENIE or seven plates and later on it was referred to as seven seen. This is pronounced as seven SEENEE in some of the villages. i.e. rather than saying 'Haft Seen' some villagers pronouce it as 'Haft Seenee'.

Usually in name of each AMSHEPANDAN, a large picturesque SEENIE plate was placed on the tablecloth and other meals were placed on other plates around the table. Other things placed on the New Year’s table are as follows:

Freshly grown greens

The greens were grown a few days before the new year in seven plates and at times in twelve precious plates, which is the number of the holy months.

In royal palaces twenty days before the New Year, twelve pillars of clay were built and on each of these they grew one of the cereal grains. The good growth of each grain was considered as a good omen. They were of the belief that the well grown grain will be a sign of abundance in the coming year. Wheat, oat, rice, beans, lentils, millets, lima beans, peas, and sesame seeds were grown on the clay pillars. On the sixth day of the New Year the greens were then harvested and distributed all over the hall floor as a sign of abundance.

Families usually placed these plates of greens on the table cloth symbolizing HOOMET (Andisheye Nik - good thoughts), HOOKHT (Goftare Nik - good words) and HOOVERESHT (Kerdare Nik - good deeds). On the side of these plates they grew wheat, oats and millet, which formed the important essentials for feeding people in order to cause the abundance of these grains during the New Year.

The green color of this vegetation was the national and religious color of Iranians and they beautified the appearance of the New Year tablecloth. They represented the Amordad of EMSHASPAND, which had to be placed on the tablecloth. People intended to have the FARVARS visit these greens and the seeds during the spring.

Bowl of fire

The bowl of fire taken from the ancestor’s fire, which was used in all religious rituals and along with other traditional and religious objects were placed in the middle of the tablecloth. Blessed grains, wild rue and incense were also placed on the New Year’s tablecloth.

Moon Crescent shaped Barsam (Mahrooye Va Barsam)

One of the important objects on the New Year’s tablecloth was the moon crescent shaped Barsamdan. They cut thin and short branches of pomegranate tree or willow tree or fig tree or olive tree in the length of one finger and they assigned these on the New Year table in bunches of three, seven, twelve or twenty one. Barsam was usually also placed on the New Year’s table, and this symbolized abundance resulting through blessings.

People held a bunch of these in their hands while praying before they commenced eating.

In the Sassanid’s era, in order to increase the majestic appearance of the royal dinning table, they made these BARSAMS out of gold. They were placed in the New Year’s table and they called them golden Tarkeh (Thin golden branch).

Gradually metallic BARSAMS found their way into religious rituals and they were used instead of wood BARSAMS.

(Barsam is a bunch of thin and short branches normally of pomegranate trees used by Zoroastrians who poured water on them and the water dripping down from these branches was considered as blessed water. They were sometimes made out of metal as well and were crescent shaped.)

Holy Book

One of the objects that was placed on the New Year’s table was the Holy Book. In view of the fact that these celebrations were considered national events, each family would place their own religious book on the New Year’s table. In the Sassanid’s era they placed the book of AVESTA on the table and they read a part of it which usually was the Farvardine Yasht and they recalled the FARVARS of the royal families, the innocent ones, the pious and the courageous whose names were mentioned in the Frvardin Yasht of AVESTA.

Today on the New Year table the holy Quran is usually placed by Iranian (Islamic) families and a verse from it is cited. Familites of other religions use their own holy book and many Iranian families also put the book of poems by Hafez, the famous Iranian poet.

Clay Water Jug (KOOZEH-E-AB)

Clay water jugs which were filled with water from down stream of mills were filled by young girls and they were placed on the New Year’s table decorated with necklaces. Even today many Iranians use small decanters on the outer surface of which they grow lentils or wheat or oats and are decorated by ribbons.

Bread

Bread symbolizes abundance and in Sassanid’s era they baked bread the size of the palm of the hand or smaller which were called DRON. These were placed on the New Year’s table and they were blessed by a prayer. Today some people still put a plate of bread or a large SANGAK bread on the New Year’s table, and this is done also in wedding ceremonies.

At times they wrote congratulations on this bread by sesame seeds. In the Sassanid’s era on the corners of New Year’s tablecloth, they wrote "to be increased" which was supposed to bring abundance of things every year. They also engraved this on the coins of the time.

Candle holder

On two sides of the bowel of fire, they placed precious candle holders or lights and these were lit.

Light and brightness were considered an important principle by Iranians. The lighted and bright world was the land of AHOORAMAZDA and wherever there was light, AHREEMAN (the devil) could not enter.

Milk

Fresh milk on the New Year’s table is an image of the food for the newly born of the skies, as according to the Zoroastrian story of creation, the human being was born on the cradle of HAMSEDATMEDAM or the three hundred and sixty fifth day of the year. Therefore in celebrating the creation of the human being, similar to the need for milk by the newly born babies, the heavenly newly born also needs fresh milk. This was considered highly sacred in ancient Iranian religions. In religious rituals milk was treated as sacred and, at times, they mixed it with crushed HOOM before drinking.

HOOM is a plant found in Iran and mountains of Afganistan which has a short branch and a milky juice and they crushed it while the holy AVESTA book was cited.

Cheese was also placed on New Year’s table as it was composed of milk, yeast, symbolizing fertility and transformation within it.

Sassanid’s kings ate a date, which was submerged in milk along with fresh cheese, and this was meant to add to the abundance of things to come.

Eggs

Egg is considered the root and the foundation of the New Year table and all kinds of white and painted eggs should be placed on haft seen. This was based on the belief that eggs symbolized fertility. The egg skin (shell) is an image of the sky and the ceiling of universe. The god of MITRA, according to a story, came from an egg from the sky.

In villages, it is customary to place an egg on a mirror and they believe that at the instant of changing of the year, when the cow from the sky, shifts the world from one horn to the other, the egg moves on the mirror. This story comes from the ancient beliefs on fertility, as the mirror represents the power of ADVENAK, which is to come down to FARVARS and draws its shape from heaven. The movement of the egg on the mirror is an image of birth and movement in the New Year. This interpretation still stands among some villagers.

Mirror

The word mirror (Ayneh) comes from ADVENAK which means to see and ADVENAK is one of the forces which assists in the creation of man.

The word ADVENAK is formed by a prefix of AD and a root of VEN which means to see and mirror is an object with which one can see images.

During the first day of the New Year when the people of the world mix with the heavenly FARVARS and other forces, the mirror symbolizes an image of that on the New Year table.

For this reason a mirror is placed on top of the New Year’s table cloth and another mirror is placed under the egg.

Placing of a mirror in front of the bride and groom in wedding ceremonies is to have the same objective, as marriage is an introduction for fertility and FARVARS assist with the creation of sperm (egg) and birth of children.

Samanoo

Samanoo is made of juice of germinating wheat. It is generally stated that FARVARS cause the growing of vegetation and germination. FARVARS make sprouts (buds) fertile and eating these fertile sprouts result in gaining strength and fertility in the years to come.

Senjed (kind of tree with fruit resembling the mountain ash)

Senjed is a fruit, which is to be placed on the New Year table as the aroma of its leaves, and its blossoms stimulate love which is of fundamental and primary importance in fertility and having children. Placing Sanjed on the New Year table was to motivate the world’s births.

Fish

The month of Esfand is in the HOOT (large fish) period. On the eve of the New Year the month of HOOT (Esfand) gives its place to the HAMAL (the month of Farvardin) and this is the reason for placing an image of changing of the year on the New Year’s table. Additionally, the fish is one of the symbols of ANAHITA, which is the angel of water and fertility and carries the main duty of the New Year, which is fertility. Its placement on the New Year’s tablecloth therefore results in abundance and fertility. Eating fish on the eve of the New Year is based on the same thinking.

Apple

Apple is one of the fruits, which was and is still placed on the New Year’s table. Villagers kept the apples in special cases and gave them to friends and acquaintances before the New Year as gifts to be placed on the New Year’s table. In ancient Iranian stories, the apple was very much related to giving birth. More often the medical men (Dervishes) split the apple in two halves and gave one half to the man and the other half to the woman. This was supposed to prevent infertility and sterility. It can therefore be concluded that the placement of apple on the New Year’s table represents another image of fertility and giving birth.

Yellow and white coins

Yellow and white coins placed on New Year’s table is an image of Shahrivar month from AMSHASPAND which represents metals and their being on the New Year’s table is intended to result in abundance and enormous amount of money in the wallets and purses.

Pussy willow flower (Bidmeshk)

Pussy willow flower is an image from SEPANDARMAD AMSHSPAND and is the special flower of the month of Esfand.

Orange

Orange symbolizes the globe and when it floats on a bowl of water, and it still makes an appearance on some 'Haft Seen' tables, it symbolizes the globe within the universe. When it rotates in the water, it symbolizes the twelve months of the year and announces the arrival of the New Year.

The Espand Seeds

The Espand seed finds its root in the ancient AVESTA term of "SPENTA" which means sacred. These seeds existed in ancient sacred times and were used during prayers.

Even today, they are burnt over the fire in order to protect people from the cast of an evil eye. Villagers these days pass thread through the seeds and use them as decorations in their rural houses.

Other objects are also put on the New Year table. Of these one can name sweets and also candies, which symbolize objects of gratification and also flour which symbolizes abundance. All these are to result in abundance, prosperity and health during the New Year.

US should help liberate Iran

The Boston Globe
16-03-2004
Letter to the editor

JEFF JACOBY put it aptly when he wrote: "if we are going to win the war on terror, the liberation of Iran is not an option. It is a prerequisite" (op ed, March 11). As he pointed out, the olive branch policy, which the Europeans and bureaucrats at the State Department have pursued in dealing with the tyrants who have ruled Iran with an iron fist for 25 years, has utterly failed to steer that country toward a tolerant, moderate, and representative government.

Neither the arms for hostages deal in 1985, nor the blacklisting of Iran's only effective opposition movement, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq in 1997, quenched the mullahs' insatiable appetite to export fundamentalism abroad, particularly to Iraq, and pursue Iran's nuclear ambitions at home.

The vivid display of intolerance by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his extremist cohorts toward their allies of the past 25 years and Tehran's nearly two decades of deception and denial about its nuclear weapons program should serve as stark reminders that the West can ill afford to continue to promote conciliation with Tehran.

Ironically, Iran is the only country where, if given the opportunity, the citizens would vote the ruling fundamentalists out of office. The yearning for democracy has survived the clerical rulers' repression and brutality.

ALI M. SAFAVI
President
Near East Policy Research Inc.
Alexandria, Va.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2004/03/16/us_should_help_liberate_iran/

Iran's Hardliners: Diplomatic Brinkmanship

March 16, 2004
Khaleej Times
Gareth Smyth

TEHERAN - American pressure over Iran’s nuclear programme is badly weakening the moderate conservative faction grouped around influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and strengthening those who are most suspicious of any rapprochement with Washington.

The right to develop a nuclear programme, which Iran says is entirely peaceful, is considered a symbol of national pride by many Iranians across the political spectrum and has not been controversial at home. When Iran reached agreement in October with Germany, Britain and France to suspend uranium enrichment and sign an additional protocol to the non-proliferation treaty allowing snap UN inspections, the chief Iranian negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, a close ally of Rafsanjani, was hailed as a likely presidential candidate when Mohammad Khatami stands down next June.

European diplomats privately said they considered Rowhani a reliable negotiator whom they believed could deliver any agreement. Conservative strategists praised Rowhani as a man of practical skills who could use presidential office to tackle Iran’s economic and social problems. But since then, Rowhani’s position has deteriorated. Whether this is entirely due to increased US pressure is a moot point. Certainly there has been steady drip of ‘leaks’ harmful to Iran from Vienna, where many countries, including the US, have representatives at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Iranian leadership seems not to have realised that. Hassan Rowhani went to Vienna last week for the IAEA board meeting demanding the IAEA close the file on Iran and reasserting that Teheran’s suspension of enrichment was both voluntary and temporary. The Iranians seemed genuinely surprised to be “deplored” in the IAEA resolution finally passed on Saturday.

The Iranian strategy, meanwhile, was to use the Europeans to counter the US and stop any attempt to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for the possible implementation of sanctions. The Iranians believed they had agreed with Europe to a temporary suspension of enrichment and that once the IAEA found no evidence of a weapons programme, Iran would resume enrichment with the added bonus of importing nuclear technology from Europe.

Some diplomats say Iran is the victim of its own negotiation style, wherein not disclosing full details of its nuclear programme back in October was part of a desire to keep the outside world guessing. When I recently met a senior Iranian official he pointed out, for some reason, that Iran had “more scientists and better facilities than Pakistan”. “The Iranians love strategic ambiguity, even up to encouraging the belief they’re near the bomb to improve their negotiation position,” said a foreign diplomat in Teheran. “Others can tire of such brinkmanship.”

The nuclear issue now casts a dark shadow over long-standing attempts to improve Iran-US relations, which were encouraged in January when the US sent humanitarian aid in January to help the victims of the earthquake in the southeastern city of Bam.

Contacts, through Swiss and British channels, were built on common interests in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the US had removed regimes hostile to Iran. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s special representative for Iraq, said in January that Iran was showing an “increasingly positive attitude” since July 1 was set as a date for transferring power to an interim Iraqi government.

An Iranian close to the regime told me last week that Teheran recently told the US - via Mohammad Javid Zarif, its UN ambassador - it was still ready to negotiate over restoring formal diplomatic relations. “The message made clear that Iran could, in some circumstances, recognise Israel,” he said. And in January, Rafsanjani held out to the US the prospect of a reliable negotiation partner by suggesting talks should be handled by the Supreme National Security Council, the body dealing with nuclear issue and headed by Rowhani.

But that already seems like a long time ago. These moves from pragmatic conservative elements in Iran’s ruling circles have been overtaken by events. The overwhelming right-wing victory in last month’s parliamentary elections in Iran (boycotted by the liberals) has coupled with tensions over the nuclear issue to harden the atmosphere in Teheran, which reacted to Saturday’s IAEA resolution by freezing inspections. Many of the hardline newspapers are now calling for Iran to leave the NPT and end cooperation with the IAEA. The additional protocol to the NPT requires approval from a parliament that, when it convenes in May, will have a right-wing majority.

None of this is an encouraging prospect for Rafsanjani’s group, which may explain its initiative over the past week to try to persuade president Khatami to leave office early.

Late last week, a source in the presidential office said that Khatami had drafted a 30-page resignation letter to deliver during the Persian New Year holiday, which begins next weekend. There have been unsubstantiated reports of Khatami resigning before, and it was impossible to get confirmation.

But on Saturday, Hussein Marashi, a deputy from Kerman and a leading member of the Executives of Construction party, founded by Rafsanjani, was quoted in the Iran News daily that “Khatami should agree to an early presidential election and leave office after a new president is elected”.

On Monday, a leading reformist confirmed that the ECP had indeed made an initiative to get Khatami to agree to an early election, but that Khatami - despite being less than happy about a final year with parliament in conservative hands - had said no.

One obvious motive for ECP is a calculation that an early election favours Rowhani. Any further troubles on the nuclear road are likely to undermine Rowhani and weaken his image as the man who delivers.

The beneficiaries of Rowhani’s demise would not be the reformists, who are in disarray and unlikely to find a presidential candidate who can pass the vetting of the Guardian Council. The right-wing media have already floated the names of Gholam Ali Haddad Adel and Ahmad Tavakoli, leading right-wingers who topped the poll in Teheran in last month’s parliamentary election.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/editorial/2004/March/editorial_March43.xml&section=editorial&subsection=editpagearticle

Noise of fire crackers and celebration start to echo in Iranian cities

SMCCDI (information Service)
Mar 16, 2004

Noise of fire crackers' explosions and celebration have started to echo in most Iranian cities before the night fall. Millions of Iranians have come into the streets, in the late hours of the afternoon, in another show of defiance to the regime and its security forces which are staying, for right now, afar contenting to look the crowd.

In practically each street and avenue of main cities, such as, Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, Mashad, Tabriz, Kermanshah, Hamadan, Oroomiah (former Rezai-e) large fire crackers are exploding as a prelude to a massive and unprecedented celebration of one of main Iranian cultural heritage and Islamic taboo breaking events.

The night will be very long for the regime forces which have tried to get ready for avoiding popular demos and riots at the occasion of such night and thousands of freedom lovers are intending to create another nightmare for the ruling clerics.

Young freedom lovers are using various occasion in order to throw the big home made fire crackers under the errant security forces cars and motorbikes that are trying to reach their posts. More actions are planned for after the night fall.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_5366.shtml

Pakistani's Nuclear Earnings: $100 Million

March 16, 2004
The New York Times
David E. Sanger and William J. Broad

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- The Bush administration said Monday that the clandestine network created by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, netted $100 million for the technology it sold to Libya alone, and for the first time officials displayed a carefully selected sample of the type of equipment that the network sold to arm Libya, Iran and North Korea.

Under extraordinary security — guards with automatic weapons stationed every few yards — officials showed reporters the most basic of the high-speed centrifuges that Dr. Khan marketed to countries seeking to enrich uranium for bomb fuel. Many of the centrifuges, flown out of Libya and stored here at one of America's first nuclear weapons laboratories, were still in their original packing crates.

But the most critical components shipped out of Tripoli — including 4,000 more advanced centrifuges and the drawings Dr. Khan sold showing how to turn the uranium into crude warheads — were kept out of view. So were labels and other evidence that would link specific products to Pakistan, Germany, Malaysia and a dozen other countries where Dr. Khan's network of suppliers and manufacturers operated over the past decade.

North Korea and Iran are believed to have purchased essentially the same package of technology that Libya obtained after negotiating with Dr. Khan in the mid-1990's.

The event here on Monday was part of a weeklong effort by the administration to trumpet what it views as one of its biggest foreign-policy accomplishments growing out of the invasion of Iraq a year ago.

"We've had a huge success here," said Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, who is in charge of overseeing the American nuclear stockpile. Surrounded by the cache of nuclear equipment, Mr. Abraham argued that the decision announced in December by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to disarm completely and rapidly came because of "the resolve that we and others conveyed in Iraq, which has forced countries to make a choice."

Mr. Abraham said that virtually all of the 55,000 pounds of nuclear gear already brought out of Libya, which appears headed to a lifting of most American economic sanctions next month, now rests here, behind barbed-wire fences in the hills of eastern Tennessee.

The equipment, he said, was "the largest recovery, by weight, ever conducted under U.S nonproliferation efforts" but was "just the tip of the iceberg" because a shipload of Libyan equipment is currently sailing to the United States.

Such work, he said, "spells out our commitment to winning the war against terrorism."

Libya never began to produce enriched uranium, though experts here said that if assembled, the equipment that the United States, the International Atomic Energy Agency and other nations have recovered could have produced enough fuel to make up to 10 nuclear weapons a year.

Libya had obtained a bit less than half of the 10,000 centrifuges it hoped to operate, before determining that the program was not worth the diplomatic cost. "The program was much more advanced than we assessed," Robert Joseph, who heads counterproliferation efforts in the National Security Council, said here. "It was much larger than we assessed."

The $100 million estimate was nearly twice as high as the highest previous estimate of what Libya paid for its nuclear technology. That figure does not include what Iran and North Korea or other customers of the Khan network that the officials declined to identify Monday, citing continuing investigations, paid to the network of suppliers.

On Saturday, Iran announced a freeze on inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to protest the terms of a resolution that chided the country for failing to cooperate fully with inspectors. On Monday, the head of the agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said in Washington that Iran had changed its position and would allow the inspections to resume on March 27.

The $100 million figure does, however, explain how a government scientist like Mr. Khan could afford a lavish lifestyle, in Pakistan, in homes around the world and at his hotel in Mali. One official noted that given the relatively small number of principal players in the Khan network — maybe a dozen people in all — it "made it a very lucrative trade."

"The network's financial dealings were deliberately complex and we do not yet have a complete picture," said Jim Wilkinson, a deputy national security adviser who made the trip here. "The developing picture, however, indicates that the Khan network received at least $100 million for supplying technology, equipment and know-how" to Libya, he said. "It was truly one-stop shopping."

Under a tent in a parking lot of the heavily guarded complex here, officials set up a display of dozens of large wooden packing crates that contained Libya's disassembled nuclear program, as well as small number of items that they had declassified. Among them were four aluminum centrifuges, called P-1's, the nomenclature for the first generation of Pakistani centrifuges based on a design that Dr. Khan stole from Europe and used to make the uranium for the first Pakistani nuclear weapons.

Gleaming, the aluminum tubes stood more than six feet tall, with three pipes coming out the top of each. The centrifuges, basically hollow metal tubes, spin at the speed of sound to separate uranium 235 — which is used as the main ingredient for bombs — from unneeded uranium 238.

In front of the display lay a six-foot-long piece of cascade piping — the line that in an operating plant would tie the centrifuges together. A set of thousands of centrifuges, called a cascade, concentrates the rare U-235 isotope to make potent bomb fuel. Each centrifuge in a cascade makes the uranium a little more enriched in the U-235 isotope.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/international/asia/16NUKE.html

The French War for Oil

March 16, 2004
New York Post
Kenneth R. Timmerman

Many Americans are convinced even today that the war in Iraq was all about oil. And they're right - but oil was the key for French President Jacques Chirac, not for the United States.

In documents I obtained during an investigation of the French relationship to Saddam Hussein, the French interest in maintaining Saddam Hussein in power was spelled out in excruciating detail. The price tag: close to $100 billion. That was what French oil companies stood to profit in the first seven years of their exclusive oil arrangements - had Saddam remained in power.

The French claimed their opposition to the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein was all about policy. The editor of the Paris daily Le Monde, Jean-Marie Colombani, just resuscitated those arguments in an editorial that singled out George W. Bush as "a threat to the very foundation of the historical alliance between the U.S. and Europe," and called fervently for the election of John F. Kerry. (I guess that F now stands for France.)

But Colombani, whose paper's coverage of the war in Iraq was noteworthy for its wanton disregard for the truth, had not a word to say about his country's war for oil. Indeed, the secret deals the French state-owned oil companies negotiated in the 1990s with Saddam Hussein went widely unreported in France.

Almost as soon as the guns went silent after the first Gulf war in 1991, French oil giants Total SA and Elf Aquitaine - who have now merged and expanded to become TotalFinaElf - sought a competitive advantage over their rivals in Iraq by negotiating exclusive production-sharing contracts with Saddam's regime that were intended to give them a stranglehold on Iraq's future oil production for decades to come.

The first of two massive deals was announced in June 1994 by then-Iraqi Oil Minister Safa al-Habobi - a well-known figure whose name had surfaced in numerous procurement schemes in the 1980s in association with the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, which supervised Saddam's chemical, biological, missile and nuclear-weapons programs.

Speaking in Vienna, al-Habobi confirmed that his government was awarding Total SA rights to the future production of the Nahr Umar oil field in southern Iraq, and that Elf was well-placed to be awarded similar terms in the Majnoon oil fields on the border with Iran.

Those two deals, which I detail in "The French Betrayal of America," would have been worth an estimated $100 billion over a seven-year period - but were conditioned on the lifting of U.N. sanctions on Iraq. Simply put, analyst Gerald Hillman told me, the French were saying: "We will help you get the sanctions lifted, and when we do that, you give us this."

The Total contract, a copy of which I obtained, was "very one-sided," says Hillman. (Hillman, a political economist and a managing partner at Trireme Investments in New York, did a detailed analysis of the contract.) An ordinary production agreement typically grants the foreign partner a maximum of 50 percent of the gross proceeds of the oil produced at the field they develop. But this deal gave Total 75 percent of the total production. "This is highly unusual," he said. Indeed, it was extortion.

But Saddam willingly agreed: He saw the Total deal, and a similar one with Elf, as the price he had to pay to secure French political support at the United Nations.

Much has been written in recent weeks about the corruption of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program. Documents uncovered in Iraq's oil ministry and published by the Baghdad daily al Mada list several cronies of French President Chirac among those who had received special oil allocations as a political payoff from Saddam.

But the amounts attributed to these individuals - in the tens of millions of barrels, on which they stood to earn between 25 to 40 cents per barrel - pale in comparison to the $100 billion payoff orchestrated by Chirac and Saddam.

No, oil wasn't the only reason France opposed the United States at the United Nations in the lead-up to the war. The megalomania of Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin (who lied to Secretary of State Colin Powell repeatedly and later boasted about it to visiting U.S. congressional delegations) certainly entered into the mix. So did French pride, wounded at the realization that France is no longer the great power it once was.

But the French did not merely disagree with the United States over Iraq, as did a certain number of our allies: They actively sought to rally world leaders and public opinion to treat the United States - not Saddam Hussein - as the enemy.

The enormous difference between those two positions - legitimate dissent and active subversion of America's right to self-defense - is why America is right to treat France as a former ally. Under Chirac's stewardship, France has shown the world that it cared more about propping up a murderous dictator than it valued its 225-year alliance with America.

Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer for Insight magazine. His book "The French Betrayal of America" is just out.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/20887.htm

It's a World War

March 14, 2004
The Jerusalem Post
Opinion

From Bali, Casablanca, and Manhattan to Moscow, New Delhi, and Madrid, the evidence is too vast, clear, and appalling to ignore: The world is at war.

Having been in the thick of this mayhem longer than others, Israel is routinely asked by states victimized by terrorism to help in a variety of aspects, from intelligence gathering and targeted killings to bomb detection and corpse identification. The victims are, of course, doing well to seek such assistance in Israel, and Israel is right in offering it. However, besides such technical aid there is a mental syndrome that frequently afflicts new terrorism targets, and which Israel can help combat: it's called denial.

The haste with which Spanish officials blamed Thursday's atrocities on an organization that insisted it did not perpetrate them, ETA, while stubbornly denying reports that the ones responsible for the Madrid Massacre are those who indeed soon assumed responsibility for it – al-Qaida – reflected a mental refusal to join the list of the fundamentalist scourge's victims.

We in Israel have undergone three different stages of denial before finally realizing that, whether or not we like it, we have got business with the Islamist beast, and that dealing with it must involve less talk and more action.

Some of us may still recall how in the mid-'90s cops, politicians, and the press reflexively attributed several terrorist attacks to regular rather than politically motivated criminals, or how Yitzhak Rabin himself – after the first bus bombings – still insisted that terrorism did not pose a strategic threat. That stage of denial ended as the frequency and magnitude of the terrorist attacks left no room for doubts concerning their origins, resources, and determination.

The next stage of denial was about the cause. For a while, many here thought the terrorists could be either manipulated by Western negotiators or persuaded by Arab leaders to lay down their arms, provided their grievances were heard and some of their demands heeded.

Israel has since learned that terrorism cannot be beaten by satisfying "grievances." America, which until 9/11 was also plagued by the denial syndrome, has since launched a global war on fundamentalist terrorism and Middle East autocracy. Europe, however, has not joined America's ideological cause, and that goes even for Britain, which is Washington's closest EU ally.

Now, some Spaniards can be expected to blame themselves for their own victimization. If Spain had not joined the war on Iraq, they will say, it would not have been attacked. We cannot but implore Spain to avoid that kind of thinking; we've been through all that and can now confidently say that Spain was targeted not for anything it did or failed to do, but for what it is, namely a country that embraces and offers all the freedoms that Muslim fundamentalism detests.

Lastly, even when it finally understands its situation, Spain might still resort to denial when it will come to identifying its enemies. Israel, and the US, initially assumed that most Middle East governments are their partners in the war on terrorism. That was the rationale behind Bill Clinton's gathering of the Sharm e-Sheikh summit in the spring of '96. Sadly, as violence accelerated it emerged that most Middle East regimes are not prepared to actively fight terrorism, and that some are not only not prepared to be part of terrorism's solution but are actually part of its problem.

Spain has been a close friend of most Arab regimes since the days of Franco's rule. While the country's subsequent transition to democracy has fortunately generated formal and healthy ties with Israel, Madrid remained a pillar of Western acquiescence with Arab dictatorship. Last week's carnage should change this.

Spain and the rest of Europe must understand that, just like last century's threat to their future was fascism, this century it is the militant form of Islam, and that just like Nazism's in its time, the jihad's excuses for its mass-murders are not even worth a hearing. Europe must concede it is at war, and has no choice but to fight it until it is won.

The jihadis see Europe and America as a common enemy against which they hope to play divide and conquer. The longer Europe waits to join with America in common cause, the more the war will escalate and spread, including within Europe. The sooner Europe joins the fight, the sooner these massacres will end and the cause of freedom and human rights will prosper.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1079168639948

Iran Reformers Seeks Ruling on Woman President

March 16, 2004
Reuters
Khaleej Times

TEHERAN - Iran’s pro-reform parliament has asked a constitutional watchdog of religious hardliners to rule on whether a woman can run for president in the Islamic Republic, the official IRNA news agency reported late on Monday.

The hardline Guardian Council, which has the power to veto candidates it deems unfit to run for office, has in the past rejected aspiring women candidates for the presidency, although it has allowed them to run for parliament.

Iran’s constitution says the president should be an Iranian, a Muslim and a “political ’rejal’”. Rejal, an Arabic word, literally means “men”, but some senior clerics in Iran say it could also refer to women.

“We have asked the Guardian Council whether a woman capable of undertaking the presidential post can apply for candidacy or if it has religious reservations,” IRNA quoted Teheran lawmaker Fatemeh Rakei as saying.

Political analysts expect the Guardian Council to rule that women are constitutionally barred from standing for president.

The second term of pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami, whose government has made some efforts to improve women’s rights in the oil-producing nation of 66 million people, expires in mid-2005. Khatami is ineligible to stand for re-election.

The surprise award last year of the Nobel Peace prize to Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi generated some initial speculation that she may run for president in the future. Ebadi said last December she saw no reason why a woman could not be president but insists she has no political ambitions herself.

The Guardian Council flexed its vetting muscles earlier this year, barring more than 2,000 mostly reformist candidates from standing in parliamentary elections last month.

Reformists decried the mass disqualifications as tantamount to rigging the election and many boycotted the vote.

Conservative candidates, who accuse reformists of trying to turn Iran into a secular state, easily gained a majority in the 290-seat assembly, reversing their 2000 election loss to reformists.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2004/March/middleeast_March432.xml&section=middleeast

Noise of fire crackers and celebration start to echo in Iranian cities

SMCCDI (information Service)
Mar 16, 2004

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1098517/posts?page=13#13

Madrid Bombing; Links to Bosnian, Iranian Networks

March 12, 2004
Strategic Studies
Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS

A series of tightly coordinated bombings on the commuter rail networks of Madrid, Spain, during rush hour on the morning of March 11, 2004, were clearly linked to the al-Qaida-related group, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which during 2003 and 2004 were engaged in geographically dispersed terrorist bombings in Ankara, Turkey, and against the UN compound in Baghdad, Iraq, in August 2003. More than anything, however, the March 11, 2004, bombings highlighted the extensive European network of the various Islamist groups and gave some indications of further activities.

There is now evidence to indicate a pattern of terrorist attacks during 2004 designed to help remove the governments of Spain, the US and Australia. In this context, in the US and Spanish operations, the Bosnian Islamist terror support network plays a key rôle, and GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs has continued to gain information which highlights this fact. [GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs readers are familiar with the extensive volume of intelligence material on this matter produced over the past decade; much of that is available in the Special Reports and Archival sections of the Global Information System.]

Operations of the magnitude of the March 11, 2004, “Operation Death Trains” (as it was described in the al-Masri communiqué which followed the bombings) require massive support infrastructures. The earlier and most recent al-Masri actions demonstrated a seamless and comprehensive capability which spans Western Europe, and involves networks which have embedded themselves into Western society over the past 15 or more years. In the case of the Iranian aspects of the support network — which not only has supported nominally Shi’i terrorists, but also nominally Sunni (Wahabbi) terrorists — the process of embedding support structures in Western Europe and North America has been underway since 1979, when extremist clerics seized power when the Shah left Iran.

In the case of the latest Spanish attacks, Iran had long coordinated terrorist activities, training and other support measures which linked Spain's ETA Basque separatist terrorist organization with other groups. ETA, which was apparently not represented at the gathering of terrorist organizations in Tehran earlier in 2004, has in the past attended Iranian terrorist conclaves, convened, ostensibly, to discuss the Palestinian issue. In reality, the more-or-less annual gatherings in Tehran — addressed and most significantly supported by the so-called “moderate” Iranian Pres. Hojjat ol-Eslam (Ali) Mohammad, Khatami-Ardakani — are gatherings to facilitate cooperation, training, interoperability and financing of disparate terrorist groups aimed at common enemies, particularly the US.

ETA routinely attends these gatherings, and its members meet with other Shi’ite and Sunni (and non-Muslim) terrorists from other areas. As well, ETA has trained and used Iranian-controlled terrorist facilities in Lebanon’s Beqa’a Valley. However, it is almost certainly the case that ETA was not officially involved in the March 11, 2004, bombings in Madrid, at least from the evidence known thus far. But it is almost certain that some individuals within ETA provided some of the logistical support or local area knowledge for the attacks.

Most significant in the European capability for the range of Islamist terrorist activities is the network built up, mostly since 1990-91, in Bosnia & Herzegovina. This network has become the hub of operations extending into Germany, France, Spain, Britain and elsewhere in Western Europe and North America.

The Bosnian-based operations — which engage a number of different Iranian-run terrorism/insurgency cadres as well as a variety of Arab mujahedin groups as well as direct Bosnian Islamist operations — provided the essential capability for the September 11, 2001, terrorists. That Bosnian network extended to the use of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Mission to the United Nations, in New York.

A September 17, 2003, report in Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, and entitled Bosnian Official Links With Terrorism, Including 9/11, Become Increasingly Apparent as Clinton, Clark Attempt to Justify Support of Bosnian Militants, noted:

A series of documents, just acquired by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, highlight the links between radical Islamists in key positions in the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H) and known and suspected Islamists with terrorist links. Significantly, one of the key Bosnian Islamist officials, Huso (he later called himself Hussein) Zivalj, was B-H Ambassador to the United Nations during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York. He arrived just before the attacks and left the post shortly thereafter.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that the movement of Zivalj to the New York post just before (and his departure just after) the September 11, 2001, attacks was not coincidental.

That extensive report also said:

Significantly, Zivalj, who is regarded as the most important radical Islamist in the B-H networks, working closely with al-Qaida and Iranian terrorist officials, has a US Green Card (permanent residency), and his family is believed to be living still in Florida. Zivalj now is believed to be a director of Islamic Bank, in B-H. He spent some time, during the communist era in the former Yugoslavia, in prison with Alija Izetbegovic, who later became the Islamist President of B-H. Significantly, Zivalj used his position in Vienna to issue, in 1995, a B-H passport to Safet Catovic [Passport No. BH-46600], and GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily has the documentation on this. Earlier, he had issued a B-H passport to Osama bin Laden, head of the al-Qaida networks.

Zivalj had been a Vice-President and member of the governing board of the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), which had been funded by Osama bin Laden, and with which Sheikh Omar Abd-al-Rahman (the so-called “blind sheikh”) was involved. The Egyptian Sheikh Omar was convicted for his rôle in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York. TWRA was founded in Vienna in 1987 and had links with the Izetbegovic Government in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as with Dr Hassan al-Turabi and his terrorist operations in Sudan.

This network, which played a key and direct rôle in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has been at the center of the so-called "green transversal", the line which runs essentially from Afghanistan through Western Europe to North America, running drugs and arms and supporting Islamist proselytization and terrorism. This network, essentially established and managed with the immense support of the late Bosnia-Herzegovina leader Alija Izetbegovic, remains in existence and is tied directly to both al-Qaida as well as with the Iranian Government, which stations Pasdaran (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps: IRGC) fighters in organized groups and compounds inside Bosnia.

GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily has provided extensive reporting, with documented details and collateral, on this subject for some years, but particularly during the past year. A number of US and European officials engaged in monitoring the implementation of the 1995 Dayton Accords in Bosnia-Herzegovina, however, have consistently refuted the data, largely because it would imply a failure of their mission and, more significantly, it would imply that the current rundown of peacekeeping forces in Bosnia — to meet needs in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere — should not be undertaken.

Now, however, the messages emanating from Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades and other al-Qaida and Islamist sources is that “al-Qaida” was now 99 percent ready for another major terrorist attack on the United States. In fact, it is not just the amorphous “al-Qaida” — which is merely a convenient catch-all name for the activities now underway — but a heavy campaign to strike at the US and its allies, including particularly Spain and probably the UK (and perhaps Australia), before the US-led Coalition succeeds in helping Iranians remove the radical clerical leaders and find and destroy Osama bin Laden himself. The attack on Madrid, timed three days before general elections, was clearly not a coincidence, and was meant to warn voters that they must pay the price for their Government’s support for the US-led “war on terror”.

A similar campaign was clearly planned for the US in 2004, a year which gives the Iranian clerics the chance to achieve “regime change” in the US. Only the removal of the US Bush Administration would give both the Iranian clerics and the bin Laden hierarchy the breathing space they seek.

GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily reported in 2003 that the Iranian clerics were known to have committed some $200-million to achieving “regime change” in the US. It is not insignificant that a major flow of funds through Albanian-Americans reached now-failed Democratic candidate Gen. Wesley Clark and significant funding is reaching the campaign of Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry through Iranian-Americans, even though the expatriates of both those countries may in large part be unaware why their help had been solicited in funneling funds to the candidates. But the Iranian-bin Laden attempts will go far deeper than that; they will almost certainly include attempts at staging terrorist “spectaculars”.

However, the timing and success of these attacks is critical. Clearly, the attacks must be seen to be overwhelmingly successful, and therefore all planning precautions will be taken to ensure that they do not appear to be “damp squibs” which merely embarrass the perpetrators.

Significantly, there are indications that the Bosnian support network in the United States remains intact and functioning. Even former BH Ambassador to the UN Huso Zivali remains at large; he has a US permanent resident “Green Card” and his family lives in Florida. One of his key functionaries in the build-up to September 11, 2001, Safet Catevic, and who was clearly involved in the US Islamist operations linked to the September 11, 2001, attacks, also remains at large and may still be in the US.

But more significantly, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs on March 11, 2001, uncovered extensive intelligence material on the background to the current Bosnia-Herzegovina Permanent Representative (Ambassador) to the United Nations, Kušljugic Mirza, a committed member of the Islamist leadership which had conducted the Bosniak side of the civil war with Iranian and bin Ladenist help in Bosnia, and which later was documented to have supported the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. A translation from the dossier is quoted at length as follows:

Kušljugic Mirza, ambassador of BiH [Bosnia & Herzegovina] to UN, during the armed conflict in former Bosnia and Herzegovina, was a member of the highest leadership of Municipal Assembly of the town of Tuzla and the War Presidency of SDP Tuzla, where he planned, encouraged, ordered, committed or in some other way supported planning, preparations and executing the following:

1. Persecutions of Serbs in the municipality of Tuzla, establishing Muslim authorities based on ethnic and religious background in towns, municipalities and villages where the Serb population lived and worked;

He participated in a national rebellion in the party SDP BiH in Tuzla when Muslims in 1991 and 1992 informally took over the leadership, keeping all other Serb activists isolated from information and real activities. They created the ruling system based on national and religious background, preparing themselves to illegally attack the Serbs.1

As a member of the War Presidency SDP in Tuzla and a member of the War Presidency of the Municipal Assembly (MA) in Tuzla, he contributed, by his deeds and actions, to the ethnic cleansing of Serbs in the region of municipality of Tuzla, which consequently led to a downfall of the number of Serbs from 22,000 to 2,000 in 1995.

Together with the other members of the War Presidency of MA Tuzla, he ordered and supported illegal mobilization of Serbs although many of them had been incapable for military service and ill, manipulating mobilization in such a way to collect the Serbs on important scientific and professional positions and consequently changing the structure of the authorities.

During 1992, 1993, and 1994 he supported arresting and dismissing from work the respectable citizens of Serb nationality, and refused to protect them.

As a member of the highest leadership of the MA Tuzla, he supported torturing and beating of Serbs who had been regularly coming to work (for example, in the company "Solana" and salt mines).

Together with Ademir Mešetovic, Mevlid Vlaic, Jasmin Imamovic and the others he had been hiding those facts from the foreign politicians and officials of the International Community, humanitarian workers and foreign journalist, as well as hiding the war truth about what was happening in the municipality of Tuzla. In addition, he created a false image on Selim Bešlagic, a president of the War Presidency of MA Tuzla, glorifying his “war charisma” and falsely presenting him in public as a multi-ethnically oriented and democratic politician.

Together with Rusmir Mahmutcehajic he formed an international forum “Bosnia”, which used the motto of democracy, human rights and multi-ethnicity to cover the position of the absolute domination of Bosniaks in BiH aimed at achieving not - democratic goals in the whole territory of BiH.

2. War Crimes against Serbs (illegal arrests, imprisonment, liquidations, inhuman and brutal treatments)

As a member of the highest leadership of the municipality Tuzla he was acquainted with the fact that the secret lists for arrests and liquidations of Serbs had been made, thus he allowed and supported establishment of private jails in Tuzla kept by jailkeepers Faruk Prcic and Ahmet Šerija Zaimovic. All the members of the Presidency knew what was happening in jails, they refused to prevent torturing and abuse of prisoners. On one occasion when Faruk Prcic shot dead a Serb in premises of the Institute where one of the jails was based, he was told not to do it in that place.

As a member of the War Presidency, Kušljugic knew that the arrests and liquidations of Serbs had been going on but he did not do anything to prevent it nor to take them into his protection. Serbs had been arrested and liquidated in their apartments, houses, streets and factories, and the arrested ones taken to death camps Ljubace and Kladanj. The bodies of the liquidated Serbs had been thrown into pits, and afterwards dug-out and buried in some secret places by special forces of the central party SDA.2

The purpose of those crimes was to eliminate Serbs from a political and public life.

3. Hiding traces of the committed war crimes

As a member of the War Presidency he knew that the bodies of dead soldiers in Trnovo had been dug out next to the Orthodox cemetery. The bodies were removed to different locations three times. Excavations were done by Faruk Prcic and organized by Timun Mumic from the SDA headquarters, while an advisor was Amir Meševic.

4. Involvement in preparations, planning and organization of attacks on the civilians and religious sites

Kušljugic participated in making decisions on the attacks launched at Dubica and Kalesije, refusing to forbid burning and plundering of Serbs' houses and churches.

In addition, he participated in making decisions on the attacks and cleansing in Caklovici, Simin Han, and Pozarnica where significant numbers of civilians were murdered, houses plundered and burned down; the rest of the population fled, and the Orthodox church was severely devastated (Faruk Prcic, a member of an engineering unit of the Tuzla's brigade, destroyed it), and nothing was done to prevent or forbid such activities.

Together with Sead Avdic and Selim Bešlagic, Kušljugic made decisions to launch attacks on Tinj and Duboki Potok, where they burned down, destroyed and plundered everything on their way with a purpose to make a military and logistic corridor toward the North and Croatia. Within the War Presidency, Kusljugiæ was one of the decisionmakers who launched attacks on Smoluca.3

5. Participation in weapons supplies to Muslims- Bosniaks and preparations of attacks against Serbs

Together with Ademir Mešetovic [Kušljugic] participated in illegal weapons supplies from Croatia in 1991 and 1992, making payments by distribution of newly build flats by "Tehnograd" Tuzla.

As a member of the War Presidency he participated in planning of the attacks launched at a convoy of JNA [Yugoslav National Army] although it had been arranged in advance, on May 15 1992, that the convoy would leave the town of Tuzla in peace;

6. Participated in illegal production an use of prohibited weapons

As a member of the War Presidency of MA Tuzla, Kušljugic participated in making decisions on production of chemical weapons based on chlorine. Adem Tucakovic alias Tuke was in charge of production of chlorine weapons in the "HAK". Shells filled with chlorine were made under the supervision of Faruk Prcic in "TTU". The chlorine shells were produced in premises of "UMEL" behind the UNHCR field office.

7. Direct cooperation with Islamic fundamentalists

During the war in Tuzla, Kušljugic established a direct cooperation with the representatives of TWRA in Vienna, known for its undemocratic, Islamist, militaristic and intelligence role in the whole world.

8. Other

What gives the best description of Kušljugic’s personality is the fact that in his Cabinet based in premises of Electro-technical Faculty in Tuzla, he keeps stolen paintings of an artist Nezir Corbic from Tuzla. The paintings were stolen from the artist's studio in Tuzla in 1992. Allegedly, Kušljugic has bought the paintings from Cazim Sarajlic, a manager of the gallery of fine arts in Tuzla.

Footnotes to the Dossier

1. The war structure of SDP party and its leadership was a such one that it included only Muslims or rather Bosniaks, having eliminated all the Serbs, Croats and Bosniak- intellectuals who had refused to abide with the policy of a national selection.

2. The list had been made by Adnan Jahic, Rifet Haskic (SDA bought him an apartment), Vedad Spahic - Vana, Salih Brkic (at the time advisor and a coordinator), Meho Krainovic (supported those activities, a refugee from Bijeljina). One of the jails was in a basement of the Institute in Miladije, where distinguished citizens from Tuzla, Serbs, had been tortured and beaten. Only two floors above the jail, in the same Institute building, the War Presidency was based led by Selim Bešlagic. Citizens who resided next to the Institute on daily basis used to hear screams and moans of the tortured people, so they would sent their children away from the Institute. Zaimovic has received a pension from the Government of Netherlands, he freely goes visiting his daughter in the Netherlands, remaining free from any sanctions by the Federation BiH for having committed war crimes.

3. Immediate carriers and perpetrators of crimes against Serbs were the following persons:

(i) ŽILIC MEHMED, Chief of Security in the 2nd Corps HQ Army FBiH, so called ABiH, in charge of the death camps in Lubaca and Kladanj;

(ii) ENES BECIC, today employed as an engineer in Tuzla;

(iii) JAHIC- brother of SULJO JAHIC, employed in the Headquarters in Tuzla;

(iv) AVDO MEŠIC (company "Tuzla - Broker") had given his minibuses for the purpose of arresting and transporting Serbs into the death camps;

(v) TUFIK SELIMBAŠIC, an armed escort of SIFET KREKIC, used to murder some of the arrested Serbs immediately on the spot. Today, an owner of a sawmill in Brateljevici near the town of Kladanj, enjoying protection of some Cauševic from getting arrested;

(vi) MEHO BEGIC, at the time in charge of making lists of the Orthodox churches to be destroyed;

(vii) JASMIN IMAMOVIC, in charge of the action of destroying the building "Borac".

The situation is now that both the Iranian and “al-Qaida” leaderships must move with increasing speed and rapidity if they are to remove their major opponents before they themselves can be removed: 2004 is the decisive year for them both. Striking Madrid on March 11, 2004, was intended to help remove the current Spanish Government of Prime Minister José Maria Aznar at the forthcoming elections. If the Spanish electorate responds by overwhelmingly supporting Sr Aznar’s Popular Party (Partido Popular, PP), then the Iranian and bin Ladenist leadership could conceivably reconsider how it conducted further attacks against, say, the US in the run-up to the November 2004 Presidential and Congressional elections. But if the Spanish electorate is perceived to react in a manner which reproaches Prime Minister Aznar, then the Iranian and bin Laden team would almost certainly move to implement major terrorist “spectaculars” in the US, attempting to show how the Bush Administration had failed to protect the US from terrorist attacks.

Having said that, it is now almost inconceivable that — regardless of the outcome of the Spanish elections — the Iranian and bin Ladenist leadership would not go ahead with attacks on the US in an attempt to influence the elections there. Equally, attacks will almost certainly be held to influence the elections which must be held in Australia before November 10, 2004.

In the interim, the “success” of the March 11, 2004, attacks in Madrid would provide impetus for the attacks which intelligence reporting indicates have been planned for the August 2004 Athens Olympic Games. In attacks on the US and the Olympics, as with the attacks of March 11, 2004, in Madrid, the Bosnian Islamist network plays a crucial rôle. Attacks on the Olympics would risk to a certain degree the operational planning, distribution and safe-have hub which Bosnia has provided for the Islamist push into Europe, just as attacks in Australia would end the safe-haven status of that country for Islamists who have wished to move out of sight.

However, given the fact that both Osama bin Laden and his team, and the Iranian clerics are fighting for their lives, the short-term objective of survival should be expected to prevail over the risk of such attacks to the long-term viability of the safe-haven bases. Indeed, if Iran and bin Laden were to be successful in removing the Bush Administration in the US, the Aznar Administration in Spain and the Howard Administration in Australia, then it is entirely likely that they would have broken the back of their opposition, and the “war on terror” would be sidelined.

The push into Western and Central Europe by the Islamists would then move forward, including a renewed outbreak of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina — to drive the Serbs of Republica Srpska out of that remaining territory in Bosnia — and in Serbia, to remove the Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija as well as the Raška area of southern Serbia; and in Montenegro, to ensure the removal of Montenegrin Christians; and in Macedonia, to ensure the geographic security of the Muslim territory which could provide a clean, almost unbroken link from Afghanistan to the heart of Europe.

In all of this, the Bosnian network is paramount. It has provided weapons and manpower for the conflict against the US-led Coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past year, and provided the essential infrastructure in Europe which helped the Madrid attacks. Significantly, Bosnia-Herzegovina has in place in its UN Embassy in New York a committed Islamist, already tied to major war crimes. Just as it did in the run-up to the September 11, 2001, attacks. The US did not even investigate the links following September 11; the Bosniak leadership is counting on the fact that the US will not now look into the Bosnian link.

http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Mar1204.htm

Regime deploys thousands of forces in the streets

SMCCDI (information Service)
Mar 16, 2004

The Islamic regime has deployed, at this time 18:00 Local time, thousands of its forces in the streets and avenues of main Iranian cities in order to avoid any popular riot from taking place at the occasion of the banned "Tchahr Shanbe Soori" (Fire Fiest).

Special forces of the Pasdaran brigades, Bassij force, Law Enforcement Forces, Anti-Riot units and even Islamic brigades are in a wait mode watching, for right now, the crowd which is becoming bigger and bigger. Traffic jams in main cities, such as, Tehran are blocking their fast move.

The night will be very long for the regime forces which have tried to get ready for avoiding popular demos and riots at the occasion of such night and thousands of freedom lovers are intending to create another nightmare for the ruling clerics.

Young freedom lovers are using various occasion in order to throw the big home made fire crackers under the errant security forces cars and motorbikes that are trying to reach their posts.

A lumber depot belonging to regime's affiliates has been set ablaze in the southern part of Tehran and It's like the sky's falling down. The Bazar perimeters and many official buildings are under massive watch as rumor has been spread that people will burn down all vestiges of the regime.

Noise of fire crackers' explosions and celebration are echoing in most Iranian cities before the night fall. In practically each street and avenue of main cities, such as, Tehran, Esfahan, Khorram-Abad, Mahabad, Shiraz, Abadan, Babolsar, Mashad, Tabriz, Marivan, Babol, Bandar e Anzali (former Bandar e Pahlavi), Kermanshah, Hamadan, Oroomiah (former Rezai-e) large fire crackers are exploding as a prelude to a massive and unprecedented celebration of one of main Iranian cultural heritage and Islamic taboo breaking events.

More actions are planned for after the night fall.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_5367.shtml