Free Republic

Iran will upgrade its medium-range Shahab-3 missiles that analysts say can hit Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf rather than develop a new, longer range weapon, a senior official was quoted as saying on Monday. Acting Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan denied reports Iran intended to build a new missile, Shahab-4, with a 2000-kilometre range, but said the Shahab-3 would be improved. "We will be optimising our Shahab-3 instead," he was quoted as saying in the hardline Siyasat-e Rouz newspaper. Shahab is Persian for shooting star. It was not immediately clear whether "optimising" meant improving the weapon's accuracy, range or...

Iran demanded on Monday that former Iraqi President Saddam Hoseyn, who led a destructive war against the Islamic Republic between 1980 and 1988, is tried at an international court. "We want that the crimes of Iraq’s dictator are examined at a competent international court and he is put on trial" Government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh told reporters at a weekly press briefing. His comment came more than 24 hours after the announce of the capture of the Iraqi tyrant by American Special Task Forces supported by Kurdish Peshmergas from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of Jalal Talabani, with so far not...

The United States is expected to target the regimes in Iran and Syria in the next stage of the war against Islamic insurgents. A report by the U.S. Institute for Peace has warned that the war that began with Afghanistan and then Iraq could include multiple targets. The most likely targets are Iran and Syria. The institute, which is under the auspices of Congress and contains leading U.S. analysts, said in the report that Stage 3 of the U.S. war against terrorism would be significantly different from previous phases. The next stage of the war would be challenging, the report...

And, yet, this was not how Iraqis, and beyond them the whole world, saw him yesterday. Saddam Hussein had claimed that he would fight his "Mother of Battles" to the bitter end, and would not be captured alive. In one of the recent audiotapes attributed to him by the Arab satellite television channel al Jazeera, Saddam promised to fight the Americans until his death on the battlefield. "I have a gun and I shall use it," he had warned. In the event, however, not a single shot was fired during his arrest. Not only did he not fight but he...

Millions of Iranians, still remembering the Iraqi agression of 1980-88, celebrated Saddam's capture and thousands honked their cars' horns while many distributed pastries in the streets. The long awaited expected news on the one who caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iranians and the destruction of several cities lead to public cheers and congratulations which were made in the streets or by phones with often allusions to what will always be the end of "tyrans and butchers". Reports from the southern cities of Abadan and Khorramshahr, which were turned into gravel by the Iraqi soldiers, are stating about...

The following is the full text of US President George Bush’s televised White House statement on the capture of Saddam Hussein: “Good afternoon. Yesterday, December 13th, at around 8.30pm Baghdad time United States military forces capture Saddam Hussein alive. “He was found near a farmhouse outside the city of Tikrit in a swift raid conducted without casualties and now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions. “The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq. “It marks the end of the road for him and all who bullied and...

Iranians welcomed the arrest of Saddam Hoseyn, hoping that this would help restoring peace and stability to Iraq and an end to the Coalition occupation of the neighbouring nation. Mr. Hoseyn was captured in a remote farm, in the Takrit region, few minutes after midnight by a combination of American special forces and Kurd Peshmerga of Mr. Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, who is the present president of the American-installed Provisory Council of Iraq. "This is a good news for the people of Iraq, who suffered most from the ruthless rule of this dictator and...

The main reformist party in Iran has expressed fears that conservatives will prevent them from taking part in parliamentary elections next February. The comments come as the registration of would-be candidates begins. Reformist leaders say they fear that a powerful conservative watchdog body, the Guardian Council, could veto their members' attempts to run for office. The BBC reports the biggest of the reformist factions that currently dominate parliament, The Participation Front, has said it will take part in the race. However, it reserves the right to pull out if too many of its entrants are disqualified. At present much of...

Ahmad Batebi, a student activist, ran so afoul of the government that he received a death sentence in 1997. It was never carried out, but he languished in jail until on one recent day he was given the luxury of a 20-day leave. Things went well until, two days before he was to return to the Evin Prison to serve out his 15-year sentence, he was rearrested in November. He had met that day with the United Nations human rights envoy, Ambeyi Ligabo. Advertisement A few days later, Mr. Batebi "had a weak voice and said that he could not...

The main reformist party in Iran has said it may boycott the country's general election if too many of its members are barred from standing. The registration of candidates began on Saturday, but leaders of the Participation Front fear their candidates could be vetoed. The unelected Guardian Council has previously disqualified candidates without explanation. Widespread public disillusionment could result in a low turnout on 20 February. Mohammad Reza Khatami leads the reformist Participation Front The current parliament, or maglis, is dominated by reformists who have won all major national elections since 1997, but they have been able to achieve little...

Iraq was a failure of the United Nations arms-control system, but Iran could very easily be its last hurrah. If the mullahs follow North Korea in going nuclear under the not-so-watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that body will have breathed its last. Yet IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei -- who sees 18 years of deception as "no evidence" of a weapons program -- has given no indication he understands what's at stake. Neither has the vast majority of IAEA member states -- especially those most committed to the concept of "multilateralism." The IAEA board recently voted to respond...

Representatives of an Iranian opposition group are appealing to the Pentagon to overrule an order this week by the Iraqi Governing Council that would expel its members from Iraq by the end of the year, possibly to Iran. The group, the People's Mujahedeen, or Mujahedeen Khalq, maintained armed camps in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. It is listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, but it has strong supporters in the Pentagon, who see it as an important pressure point on the Iranian government. The request was sent on Thursday to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and shown to...

The Iraqi Governing Council might ask the U.S. military to expel an anti-Iran paramilitary group from Iraq, but the council has no plans to hand them over to Iran, where they are wanted for terrorist attacks, two Iraqi officials said Friday. Earlier this week, the U.S.-appointed council decided to expel by year's end the 3,800 members of the Mujahedeen Khalq, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union. "We might ask the Americans because they have the military capabilities," Governing Council member Dara Noor al-Din said. "We don't have an army and the police force isn't...

Iran's policy of blocking access to certain websites has been defended by the country's authorities at the UN digital summit. Iranian authorities claim only sites not compatible with Islam are blocked Speaking in Geneva, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami insisted that the country only blocks access to 240 "pornographic and immoral" websites. He said the ban only applies to sites that are incompatible with Islam, and a government official added that "all political sites are free". Online censorship in Iran became a big issue at the summit after hundreds of Iranians flooded a website covering the event with complaints about restricted...

Pakistani authorities yesterday sent home one of the two nuclear scientists who had reportedly been detained since early this month, saying they had finished “debriefing” him. “The debriefing session of one of the scientists has concluded and he has resumed his normal duties,” foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan said. Local newspapers had linked the pair’s apparent detention to allegations that Pakistani scientists helped Iran develop its nuclear programs. Yasin Chohan, a laboratory director at the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) uranium enrichment facility, returned home yesterday morning, an associate of Chohan’s family said. Chohan and KRL director Farooq Muhammad were taken...

<p>The U.S. secret weapon against Iran is kept behind high gates here, where several thousand fighters of the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People's Warriors, live in a sprawling military base guarded by U.S. troops.</p> <p>Although Khalis is just 60 miles north of Baghdad, two large statues of Iranian lions decorate the base's interior gateway, and an Iranian flag snaps in the wind.</p>

Iran's armed opposition group, the Mujahedeen (MKO), said Friday it had told the US authorities that any attempt by Iraq's US-controlled Governing Council to expel thousands of its members to Iran would be a war crime for which Washington would be responsible. Some 4,000-5,000 of the MKO, which mounted attacks inside Iran from neighbouring Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power, have been disarmed since the US-led invasion and are now guarded by US troops in their base of Camp Ashraf, east of the capital. Earlier this week the Governing Council said it planned to expel the MKO, whom it...

British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Mike O’Brien has said that the British government would not take part in any military intervention in Iran or Syria. He was talking to newsmen, after delivering keynote speech on "Pakistan and Britain - A Developing Relationship", arranged by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, Economic Affairs and Law (KCFREAL) at the FTC Auditorium, here on Thursday. Describing Iran as an emerging democracy, he said that the UK was working alongside the Iranian government for the country’s growth. He said his country also had no plans to go after Syria. He...

"Why should I bother to vote?" asks 25-year-old Dariush, one of the millions of young Iranians who helped put reformists in power during the last parliamentary elections in 2000. "The reformists have done nothing. Khatami has had the backing of 22 million people yet he hasn't stood up to the conservatives," he says of embattled President Mohammad Khatami, whose pledge of 'Islamic democracy' saw him win landslide victories in 1997 and 2001. In just over two months, Iranians will again be deciding on the way forward for the quarter-century-old Islamic republic. Will it be yet more struggling between elected reformists...

<p>AFTER months of soul- searching, it now seems certain that the Iraq Governing Council is prepared to put the fallen Ba'athist regime on trial. The decision is important because it ends the debate over who should hold the trials and where. The council seems confident enough that the Iraqis can handle the task themselves: No need for a court outside Iraq, with foreign judges. The tribunal will sit in Baghdad, with only Iraqi judges to try Saddam and his associates on charges ranging from corruption to crimes against humanity.</p>