Free Republic

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian prosecutors said on Thursday they had detained a man of Iraqi nationality after a series of letters containing a nerve gas ingredient were sent to the prime minister's office and the U.S. and British embassies. A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office told a news conference the 45-year-old man was arrested late on Wednesday in the western Belgian town of Deinze. Two postal workers were taken to hospital after being exposed to the chemicals in the letters at mail depots. No one else was hurt by the 10 letters sent to a variety of targets, including...

A British embassy convoy in Tripoli came under fire on Sunday in an attempted carjacking but no-one was hurt, a spokesman for London's mission in Libya said. "Early this morning a British embassy convoy was subject to an attempted carjacking. Shots were fired at our vehicles but they managed to drive on and leave the area," spokesman Bob Phillipson said. "All embassy personnel are safe and accounted for and there were no injuries," he said.

A statement issued Tuesday says the department has ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel from Yemen "due to the continued potential for terrorist attacks." The travel warning says U.S. citizens currently in Yemen should depart and calls the security threat level in Yemen "extremely high." A U.S. intelligence official and a Mideast diplomat told The Associated Press that the current shutdown was instigated by an intercepted secret message between al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri and his deputy in Yemen about plans for a major terror attack. Britain's Foreign Office says it has evacuated all staff from its embassy in...

(Reuters) - Britain urged its nationals to leave the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Thursday, citing a "specific and imminent" threat to Westerners days after a deadly attack by Islamist militants in neighbouring Algeria. Britain's Foreign Office declined to give details of the nature of the threat, but has warned in the past of the long reach of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African wing of al Qaeda. At least 38 hostages were killed in an attack on the remote In Amenas gas complex in Algeria, about 100 kms (60 miles) from the Libyan border. French...

BRITAIN’S fraught relations with Iran suffered a further setback yesterday when a local member of its embassy staff on trial in Tehran “confessed” to espionage. He said Britain had provided financial assistance to Iran’s reformists to undermine the hardline clerical regime during June’s disputed presidential elections. Hossein Rassam, a political analyst with the embassy, said a budget of £300,000 had been allocated by the embassy to establish contacts with political groups, individuals and activists. He said he had personally made contact before the election with the campaign headquarters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the pro-reform candidate who claims he was robbed...

BRITAIN'S row with Iran deepened last night after the Tehran government threatened to put British Embassy staff on trial. The Muslim clerics who call the shots in Iran accuse local workers at the embassy of fanning the anti-government protests which followed last month's disputed election. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was urgently trying to speak to his counterpart in Tehran over the legal threat to the staff. Earlier, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's powerful Guardian Council, claimed embassy workers had confessed to involvement in the protests. Jannati said: "In these events, their embassy had a presence. "Some people...

A top Iranian cleric says some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who is close to Iran’s supreme leader, has made the announcement in a Friday prayer sermon. He says the detained staffers “made confessions.” Jannati does not say how many staffers will be tried or on what charges. Earlier Iranian officials said all but one of the eight embassy personnel arrested on June 27 had been released, but European Union officials said they believed more than one was still being held. Jannati is the head of...

TEHRAN: Iran said on Monday it has freed five of the local British embassy staff it arrested on accusations of stoking post-election unrest, a move that further threatened tense ties with London. "Eight people were arrested. Five were freed and three are still being interrogated," ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said at a press conference in Tehran. Earlier English-language state television Press TV had spoken of a total of nine arrests. Ghashghavi also said that Iran, which has accused Western nations particularly Britain and the United States of "meddling," has no current plans to close embassies or downgrade diplomatic ties with...

Iran has arrested eight local British embassy staff, triggering London's fury and further exacerbating tensions with the West over the post-election turmoil in the Islamic republic. The latest backlash against what Iranian leaders have branded as foreign "meddling" came as opposition leaders continued to defy the regime, rejecting a panel set up to hold a partial recount in the hotly-disputed presidential vote.

The European Union’s 27 nations on Sunday joined forces to condemn Iran’s detention of British embassy staff in Tehran,as tensions escalated between Iran and the west in the wake of the disputed elections. After Iran arrested nine local employees working at the UK embassy in Tehran, EU foreign ministers meeting in Corfu said they would respond firmly to any further “harassment or intimidation [by Iran] of foreign or Iranian staff working in embassies”. David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, said he was “deeply concerned” by the arrests and warned their continued detention was “quite unacceptable’’.The seriousness of the diplomatic stand-off was...

Iran 'must free UK embassy staff' David Miliband: "Harassment and intimidation" The European Union has demanded the immediate release of Iranian staff at Britain's embassy in Tehran detained on Saturday over post-election unrest. EU ministers meeting in Greece warned that "harassment or intimidation" of embassy staff would be met with a "strong and collective" response. Iranian media reported the detention of eight local staff at the UK mission over their alleged role in the unrest. UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband dismissed the allegations as baseless. Relations between the countries are strained since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the UK of stoking...

CORFU, Greece (Reuters) - The European Union on Sunday condemned Iran's crackdown on post-election protesters and said the EU would meet any Iranian intimidation of European diplomatic staff with a "strong and collective response". Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country takes over the EU presidency from Wednesday, said the Iranian government had been weakened at home and abroad. "Obviously the regime is trying to preserve its position by very harsh repression. But that cannot hide the fact that this is a weakened regime. It has lost legitimacy both internally and externally," Bildt said. EU foreign ministers were meeting on...

Iran has detained several local British embassy staff, sparking a new row with Britain on Sunday that underscored the hardline leadership's effort to blame post-election unrest on foreign powers, not popular anger. EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. Iranian police stand guard during an anti-Britain protest in front of the British embassy in Tehran June 23, 2009. (REUTERS/Fars News/Files) British Foreign Secretary David Miliband demanded the release of all the staff still held and said his European Union colleagues had agreed to a...

Iran arrested nine local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran Saturday, drawing a terse response from the U.K. government and signaling an escalation of tensions between two countries with a history of difficult relations. AFP/Getty Images Iranian riot policemen stood guard outside the British embassy in Tehran on June 15, 2009. Iranian media reported the arrests on Sunday, saying the employees had been detained for allegedly playing a role in post-election demonstrations in Tehran. Speaking Sunday during a visit to Greece, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said some of the nine who were arrested have been released, though he...

The European Union has demanded the immediate release of Iranian staff at Britain's embassy in Tehran detained on Saturday over post-election unrest. EU ministers meeting in Greece warned that "harassment or intimidation" of embassy staff would be met with a "strong and collective" response. Iranian media reported that eight local staff at the UK mission had been held for their role in the recent riots. UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband dismissed the allegations as baseless. Relations between the countries are strained after President Ahmadinejad accused the UK of stoking post-election protests, which London denies. Iran has repeatedly accused foreign powers...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. (snip) Iranian authorities have detained several local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran, a move that Britain's foreign secretary Sunday called "harassment and intimidation" and reflected a hardening of the regime's stance toward the West. Iranian media said eight local embassy staff were detained for an alleged role in postelection protests, but gave no further details. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said "about nine" employees were detained Saturday and that four had been released. The...

Britain today condemned the arrest of nine employees of the British embassy in Tehran and demanded their immediate release. An Iranian news agency reported this morning that the Iranian workers had been detained for involvement in the post-election unrest in the Islamic Republic. The arrests follow a week of escalating rhetoric against Britain, which was accused by the Iranian foreign minister of flying in jet-loads of spies to disrupt Iran's presidential elections on July 12. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, denied that the mission had been involved in any post-election unrest and called for the release of the embassy staff....

Britain today ordered the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats in a retaliatory move that followed the expulsion of two British diplomats from Tehran yesterday. Announcing the expulsions to parliament, the prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the Iranian action had been "unjustified".

The government of Iran is turning up the heat on the British government, with a 'protest' led by Basij militia being planned for Tuesday afternoon at the British embassy in Tehran.A 'student leader' has been quoted by name threatening a repeat of the 1979 takeover and hostage-taking at the American embassy that lasted 444 days.The British government has started to evacuate family members of its diplomatic staff and the Iranian foreign minister has hinted at expelling the British ambassador.From WashingtonTV (translated from Persian):the news network of the Islamic Republic’s Voice and Vision Organization [state-owned radio and television] reports that some...

Britain has begun evacuating the families of diplomats based in Tehran after pro-regime student leaders made plans to march on the embassy on Tuesday. Previous demonstrations outside the British embassy have led to violent attacks on the mission in which grenades have been thrown. The order to withdraw, which does not yet apply to embassy staff, also came as Iranian officials threatened to sever ties with the UK. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The ongoing violence has also had a significant impact on the families of our staff who have been unable to carry on their lives as normal. "As...