Free Republic

SNIPPET: "The US Treasury department has added four Iranian Qods Force commanders to its list of specially designated global terrorists, two of whom are charged with directly providing support for the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan." SNIPPET: "General Hossein Musavi is the commander Qods Force's Ansar Corps, "whose responsibilities include IRGC-QF activities in Afghanistan," the Treasury stated. "As Ansar Corps Commander, Musavi has provided financial and material support to the Taliban." Colonel Hasan Mortezavi is described as a senior Qods Force officer who "provides financial and material support to the Taliban." Qods Forces' Ansar Corps is the command that is assigned...

At least five Iranian football players wore green bands around their wrists or arms during a World Cup qualifying match against South Korea on Wednesday in an apparent protest against a disputed election at home. The players, including captain Mehdi Mahdavikia, wore green - the signature color of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi - in an apparent show of support. Protesters at home who accuse the government of rigging Iran's June 12 election in favor of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been wearing similar green wristbands. One player, Ali Karimi, had green bands wrapped around both wrists. But by the...

I've overdone this metaphor, but I really do see the panoply of sources we have about Iran as an intelligence service to the masses. We've got reliable Humint -- on the ground sources. We've got open-source reports from broadcast and newspaper media. We've got analysis, in the form of great aggregation by smart observers.  We lack, um, signals intelligence, but Twitter is really a form of SIGINT, isn't it?  There's plenty of misinformation out there, like rumors that Ahmadinejad is going to stage an assassination attempt, so we need to be careful about how we judge the information.  If we're...

...Mr. Ahmadinejad was credited with more votes than anyone in Iran's history. If the results are to be believed, he won in all 30 provinces, and among all social and age categories. His three rivals, all dignitaries of the regime, were humiliated by losing even in their own hometowns. This was an unprecedented result even for the Islamic Republic, where elections have always been carefully scripted charades. Many in Tehran, including leading clerics, see the exercise as a putsch by the military-security organs that back Mr. Ahmadinejad. Several events make these allegations appear credible. The state-owned Fars News Agency declared...

TEHRAN, Iran - Shots were fired Monday at a rally by pro-reform presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, apparently by pro-government militia. An AP photographer said militia fired at the opposition protesters, killing at least on person. "There has been sporadic shooting out there ... I can see people running here," added a reporter of Iran's English-language Press TV.

Posted: 13 June 2009 0314 hrs TEHRAN - Reformist former premier Mir Hossein Mousavi claimed that he had won a landslide victory in Iran's presidential election on Friday. "In line with the information we have received, I am the winner of this election by a substantial margin," Mousavi told a news conference in Tehran. Only minutes earlier, close Mousavi aide Ali Akbar Mohatshemi-Pour told AFP his candidate had won 65 percent of the vote. "According to the information received from provinces and from Tehran, Mousavi has got 65 percent of the votes cast," he said. Mousavi has been running a...