Free Republic

May 9, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Iranian officials have jailed a prominent American-Iranian scholar after banning her departure from the country, according to the U.S.-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Wilson Center in Washington, had undergone periodic interrogations by Iranian intelligence officials for four months before being taken to Tehran's Evin prison on May 8, according to center President and Director Lee Hamilton. Wilson Center Details The Case Iranian officials have not commented on Esfandiari's reported arrest, and it is unclear whether she has been formally charged with...

Excerpt - BAGHDAD: An audiotape said to be of Saddam Hussein's deputy said his group will keep fighting until the last foreign soldier withdraws from Iraq, saying the Americans are being defeated. The audiotape purportedly from Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri was obtained by The Associated Press in Baghdad on Sunday. It was impossible to determine its authenticity, but several Iraqis familiar with al-Douri's voice said they believed it from his. It was also unclear when the audiotape was made but the comments referred to Saddam as a "martyr." He was hanged Dec. 30 for his role in the deaths of more...