Free Republic

Jihad Watch Court Docs: Iranian-American Lobbying Group NIAC Defrauded Feds, Lied to Congressmen, Paid for Congressional Testimony, and Arranged Secret US/Iran Meetings Pamela Geller has just published this revealing and important message from the Iranian-American human rights activist Arash Irandoost: Dear Friend,حرف بس است. متحد شویم. عمل کنیمIt is time to act. Court documents released as a result of a lawsuit filed by NIAC against Hassan Dai paint a very disturbing picture of Trita Parsi and the NIAC. They range from defrauding the federal government, lying to members of Congress, arranging secret meetings between the US and the criminal regime,...

Iran has selected a new figure to head its national Assembly of Experts, a body that governs the tenure of the Supreme leader, state news agency FARS reported on Tuesday. Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, a cleric who had served as the head of Iran's Judiciary branch between 1989 and 1999, was among other candidates considered for the position, both of whom are senior clerics in the Islamic Republic's regime and hold the title of Ayatollah. Yazdi's selection to this new position comes in light of reports that the current Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who suffers from stage four prostate cancer, was...

Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, burying some of their victims alive and kidnapping hundreds of women, a Baghdad government minister said on Sunday. Iraq's human rights minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told Reuters that he had evidence that the Sunni militants had thrown the Yazidi dead into mass graves, adding that some of those buried alive were women and children. About 300 women had been forced into slavery, he said.

SNIPPET - quote: www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl1955.aspx Treasury Announces New Sanctions Against Iran Actions Target Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Proliferation Activities 5/23/2013     WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury is taking action today against 20 individuals and entities for their involvement in Iran’s nuclear and missile proliferation networks and Iran’s continued attempts to circumvent sanctions. These networks are responsible for moving supplies and providing essential services to Iran’s clandestine nuclear and weapons programs. These actions are designed to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by tightening sanctions against Iran’s energy sector and exposing key proliferation related networks that span the...

Iranian hardliner, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi defended himself against recent accusations that he is trying to uproot the Supreme leader by calling Ayatollah Khamenei the "symbol of truth" not only in Iran but also in the world. In a meeting with Basij students of Open University Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi said that Ayatollah Khamenei has no "weaknesses" and the history of his family is "without fault," because his children do not interfere in the "smallest political and economic matter." Mesbah Yazdi continued his admiration of Ayatollah Khamenei saying that "sedition" will continue and to stop it "we must look onto the great...

One of Iran's most prominent dissident clerics, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, has died aged 87. Hossein Ali Montazeri was a moving spirit in the 1979 revolution which created Iran's Islamic state, and was at one stage set to become its leader. His fierce criticism of the slaughter by Khomeini in his prisons - ended in his being "banned" and theoretically "demoted". Announcing his death, the Mullah regime refused to even give him an Ayatollah title let alone his true Grand Ayatollah one, mentioning him only by his name. One of Shia Islam's most respected figures, he was also a...

Following the escalation of protests by Iran’s senior ayatollahs against the regime, some members of the Qom Seminary Teachers Association (the most important organization of clerics affiliated with the regime) are planning to present a new list of “grand ayatollahs” under the supervision of Mohammad Yazdi, Ahmad Jannati and Mesbah Yazdi. According to rumors, the new list of grand ayatollahs will include people such as Jafar Sobhani, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, Khoshvaght and a number of other ayatollahs approved by the regime. Credible reports indicate that prominent grand ayatollahs such as Montazeri and Zanjani will not have a place on the...

Special Dispatch - No. 2492 August 17, 2009 On July 12, 2009, the Iranian news agency ISNA published a letter written by Iranian chief of staff Hassan Firouzabadi to the Hidden Imam (the Shi'ite messiah, also called the Mahdi). In his letter, Firouzabadi depicts the post-election protests as a conspiracy against the Iranian regime by the West and the reformists in Iran. He also rejects accusations of Basij brutality, saying that the group did not act against the Iranian people in suppressing the protests, but rather tried to protect them. He concludes by urging the Hidden Imam to come speedily...

Earlier this morning I posted this video asking for translation. It has been attributed to Twitter, when in fact it was first posted on the blog Raye Man Kojast blog (where is my vote?): Ahmadinejad and Yazdi preparing a coup (unconfirmed), an excellent blog I have been watching since the start of the revolution.It has since circulated through the blogs and Rusty has posted this translation. The commentary is a jaw dropper. (hat tip cathy) This is a summary transcript of the conversation that took place between Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and others in Qom immediately after the elections...

I've been puzzling over a seemingly incongruous report. That Ayatollah Yazdi, whom I have always heard was a hardcore attack dog/enforcer for the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, had been arrested! Thios does not seem to correlate. I take all these uncorroborated reports with several grains of salt..( at one point I heard that Rafsanjani had been arrested, and taken to the residence of the Supreme leader...But now we hear he has been hiding out in Qom...) But he (Yazdi) like Rafsanjani, has been conspiuous in their absence from the scenes. Anyone know anything more than I do?

Excerpt - TEHRAN (AFP) - Centrist cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was running well ahead of his ultra-conservative rival Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi in elections for Iran's Assembly of Experts, with half the votes counted, state television said. Both clerics were standing to be one of the 16 men who will represent Tehran province in the Assembly of Experts, the body which chooses and supervises the supreme leader. ~ snip ~

Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, the intellectual mentor of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, at a seminar titled “Supporters of Islamic Government”, One cannot expect everyone in a country of 70 million people to be deserving and righteous, but 7 million believers can be raised from amongst them.” In the same light, one of the students of the ayatollah Mohsen Garavian has said, “While a think can be a non-criminal activity from a perspective, but from another perspective it cal also be a crime.” In recent weeks, some of the supporters of Yazdi have filed a legal suit against the...

March 28, 2006 -- HAVING crossed another false crescendo, the crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions seems to be calming down somewhat. The U.N. Security Council has danced its way away from the issue - at least for the time being. And the United States, having subcontracted its Iran policy to the European Union trio, shows no sign of wanting to keep the issue under the limelight.

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 21 – A senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards who once vowed that “no part of the Islamic world is going to be safe and secure for America” was named as the new head of the Guards’ Air Force. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a decree on Saturday, appointing Brigadier General Hossein Salami as the new commander of the Air Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Another senior Guards commander, Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Zahedi, was put in charge of the IRGC Ground Forces. Salami is known as the father of the IRGC’s “asymmetric...

According toBBC Persian and Persian service of IRNA, the hardline ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has announced that the Iranians living in the US need 5000 Islamic clerics for their religious services. Mesbah Yazdi asks the new Iranian government to finance their trainings! This hardline ayatollah is known as the founder of the shiite version of Taliban in Iran. Given the numerous statements made by several regime's officials regarding the destruction of the US and Israel, it makes me think about the type of the religious missionaries, this Mullah is talking about. Statesments like "Execution of suicide and missile attacks aimed at...

Major Demonstration In Tehran!!! It is being reported by Azadi Tv (Iranian Satellite TV) that between 200,000 to 400,000 Iranians have started a demonstration in front of Tehran University in support of Azhura Khaleghe Yazdi and it is still going on as we report this. Dr Yazdi has been claiming that the Iranian regime will end next week when he returns to Iran. It was an anti-regime demonstration using the pretext of the victory of Iran in the battle to free the city of Abadan in Iran/Iraq war. Then the anti demonstration police force was called in and they fled...

I as many others have been searching about this man Ahura Khaleghi Yazdi and have not found much. What I have come across is www.ahura.info and some sites that indicate close US government ties. Is this guy working for the US government? It is quite a coincidence that he showed up right when the US and Israeli Armies are days away from attacking Iran. Let’s not forget the EU who are clearly more tactful in their approach to the nuclear disarmament in Iran and the removal of the government. We are also witnessing a significant internal uprising in Iran and...