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Iranian attack on US drone – payback for Khartoum bombing

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Iranian attack on US drone – payback for Khartoum bombing

Washington was taken by surprise by the attack on an unarmed American MQ-Predator drone over the Persian Gulf by two Iranian SU-25 jet fighters, which only came to light Thursday, Nov. 8, after a week. The newly-reelected President Barack Obama and his advisers had assumed they were heading in a quite different direction,  to very important direct talks with Tehran on its nuclear program and other Middle East affairs, including Syria.
But there was no mistake. Less than 24 hours after the event, Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi confirmed that two warplanes had indeed fired shots at an American drone on Nov. 1. He claimed the unmanned aircraft he entered Iranian airspace, challenging the Pentagon statement that the Predator based in Kuwait was on a routine surveillance mission in international air space. The drone was not hit.

This was the first Iranian attempt to shoot down an American aircraft over the Persian Gulf and also the first by a Revolutionary Guards Air Force fighter jet. Until it happened, Iranian fighter aircraft were not known to have the ability to down an American drone or that its pilots had been trained for this kind of mission.
Had they succeeded, Tehran would have accounted for its second US drone in the space of a year, after downing and capturing intact an American Sentinel loaded with surveillance gear.
Whereas the Obama administration has set its face toward diplomatic dialogue with Tehran and was therefore taken aback by this sudden act of aggression, the Iranians have a different take on the coming negotiations.

First of all, they have no interest in the short, fruitful process compressed into three months sought by Barack Obama (as DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources disclosed Thursday, Nov. 8), but have every intention of dragging it out over many months.

Neither is Tehran amenable to what it suspects are Israeli covert operations against Iranian targets carrying on in the course of its talks with Washington.
Iran and Sudan charged Israel with responsibility for the Oct. 24 bombing of the Yarmouk factory complex near Khartoum that manufactured Iranian missiles. It was implied that Iranian missile engineers lost their lives in the raid, which Israel has never acknowledged.
DEBKAfile’s military sources note that if Israel did indeed attack the Khartoum factory on that date, it would have coincided with the large-scale Austere Challenge 2012 war game American and Israeli forces were conducting at the time. They were practicing defensive measures against a simulated Iranian ballistic missile attack, bringing into play the most advanced US radar facilities posted in the Middle East and Europe, including the US X-band radar stationed in the Israeli Negev.
Iran took it for granted that if Israel was responsible for the Khartoum operation, it must have been with the knowledge of US Middle East commanders, the war game chiefs and Washington.
During September, ahead of the war game and the attack, Tehran twice warned that American targets would pay the price for an Israeli strike against an Iranian interest.
On Sept. 3, the warning came from Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah. He said: “The response will not be just inside the Israeli entity – American bases in the whole region could be Iranian targets.”
The same warning was repeated on Sept. 23, by the Revolutionary Guards Air Force commander Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
And on Nov. 1, Iranian fighters shot at – and missed – an unarmed American drone. This may be seen as payback for the Israeli assault on their missile plant in Sudan. It may also be Tehran’s warning to Washington to hold Israel back from any covert acts of sabotage if it desires negotiations with Iran.

Source: Debka

Graduate student expelled

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Graduate student expelled

Iran Daily Brief: A Baha’i graduate student, Farid Mohamadzadeh, was expelled from graduate studies at the University of Isfahan for his religious beliefs.

United States Blacklists Iranian Officials, Entities Blamed For Censorship

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United States Blacklists Iranian Officials, Entities Blamed For Censorship

The U.S. State Department has imposed sanctions against four Iranian officials and five government bodies that Washington accuses of involvement in censorship activities, including blocking Iranians’ access to the Internet.

The U.S. administration said on November 8 that the four sanctioned individuals include the Islamic republic’s Minister of Communication and Information Technology Reza Taghipour, who has been accused being responsible for ordering the jamming of satellite television broadcasts and restricting Internet connectivity.

State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said the sanctions underscore the administration’s commitment to hold Iranian government officials and entities responsible for abuses carried out against ordinary Iranians.

The U.S. Treasury also announced sanctions against several other Iranian individuals and entities for what the Obama administration describes as their role in human rights abuses, support for terrorism and activities pertaining to weapons proliferation.

Source: rferl

Pentagon Says Iran Fired On U.S. Drone In Gulf

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Pentagon Says Iran Fired On U.S. Drone In Gulf

The Pentagon says that an Iranian warplane fired on, but did not hit, an unarmed U.S. drone a week ago.

Speaking at a news conference in Washington on November 8, Pentagon press secretary George Little said the drone aircraft was fired upon on November 1 while in international airspace over the Persian Gulf.

Little said the U.S. drone was performing “routine surveillance” and was some 26 kilometers off the Iranian coast when an Iranian warplane intercepted it and opened fire.

International airspace begins after 12 miles from a country’s shore. Reports say two Russian-made SU-25 “Frogfoot” aircraft were involved.

Little said it was the first time an American drone was fired on in international airspace over the Gulf.

Little added that the United States “communicated to the Iranians” that it would continue to carry out such surveillance flights in international airspace.

Source: rferl

Abuse of Baha’i prisoner and refusal to grant leave

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Abuse of Baha’i prisoner and refusal to grant leave

The Intelligence Ministry staff in Mashhad continues to prevent Rosita Vaski from a leave, despite the fact that she has served half of the prison sentence imposed on her. Rosita, a member of the Baha’i minority, served over 30 months of the five-year sentence imposed on her. However, her leave from prison has not yet been approved.

Source: Iran Daily Brief

Tortured Iranian blogger buried amid calls for probe into death

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Tortured Iranian blogger buried amid calls for probe into death

The Paris-based rights group Reporters Without Borders says it is “deeply shocked” by the death of Iranian blogger and activist Sattar Beheshti, who is believed to have died under torture a week after being detained by Iran’s cyber police.

The organisation urged authorities in Iran to shed light on Beheshti’s death and called on the “international community not to allow this crime to go unpunished.”

“The Tehran government is an egregious example of the triumph of impunity ,” the group said. “Up to now, no-one responsible for the deaths in detention of any journalists or netizens has been brought to justice.”

RWB also called for the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, to be allowed entry to Iran in order to carry out his own independent investigation into Beheshti’s death and other similar cases of prisoner abuse.

The 35 year-old was arrested by Iran’s cyber police on national security charges on 30 October. After raiding his home and violently arresting the young activist, the security forces confiscated his personal belongings, including his computer and handwritten notes.

A week later, his family was told to receive his body and to prepare his mother for the news.

On Thursday, Kaleme, an opposition website close to Green Movement leader Mir Hossein Mousavi,published a copy of a letter of complaint it said Beheshti had written while being held in the notorious Evin Prison. According to the letter, which was addressed to prison officials, Beheshti was tortured during his interrogations.

The blogger and worker was from the city of Robat Karim, 25 kilometers southwest of the nation’s capital Tehran. He regularly posted articles critical of the Iranian government on his blog and was active on the social networking site Facebook.

The BBC’s Persian service says that Beheshti was laid to rest in Robat Karim’s main cemetery on Thursday. Security forces did not allow anyone but Beheshti’s brother-in-law to attend the funeral.

Since Beheshti’s death, his family have been under the pressure and surveillance of Iran’s security apparatus. They’ve also been ordered not to speak to the media about the death of the family’s only breadwinner.

Meanwhile, Mansour Haghighat-Pour, the Vice Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, told the semi-official news agency Ilna that case of Beheshti’s death did not meet the requirements for being investigated by his committee.

“If necessary, the relevant bodies will handle this case. The … Committee has not yet received any [official] reports about the issue.”

The following Images show Sattar Beheshti’s place of residence in Robat Karim. His picture hangs on the door of his house:

Source: Iran Green Voice

Student activist Bahman Darolshafaei begins serving out 5 ½ year jail term

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Student activist Bahman Darolshafaei begins serving out 5 ½ year jail term

Student activist Yashar Darolshafaei has referred to Evin Prison to serve out his jail-term.

According to opposition site Kaleme, Darolshafaei, a postgraduate student at Tehran University, has begun serving a 5 ½ year prison sentence.

Darolshafaei was initially arrested on 4 November 2009 and spent three weeks in Evin Prison. He was arrested again on 10 February that year along with six other members of his family, including his mother and brother. He was released 32 days later.

A court presided over by Judge Salavati later sentenced Darolshafaei to seven years in jail for national security charges and insulting the president. The sentence was later commuted to 5 ½ years.

The young activist was formerly the head of a pro-reform student organisation at the Imam khomeini International University of Qazvin.

Source: Iran Green Voice

Those who control through lies and dictatorship cannot force their position on us

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Those who control through lies and dictatorship cannot force their position on us

Blogger Hossein Ronaghi-Maleki, who launched a hunger strike at Evin Prison, sent a letter to his mother. He wrote, “You know that a political prison is used as leverage to pressure those who are refusing to submit to the repression and who have not forgotten their commitment and adherence to the liberation of their homeland. Those who control through lies, deceit and dictatorship know full well that they cannot force their positions on us. Those who are established in the blood of this people in the name of religion will one day be forced to provide an accounting of their actions.”

Source: Iran Daily Brief

Parliament finds president’s office misused billions

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Parliament finds president’s office misused billions

The Iranian Parliament’s review of government budget reports for the past year reveals that the Ahmadinejad administration has “failed to deposit $12 billion of oil revenues in the treasury and used it to cover its budget shortages.”

The Mehr News Agency reports that the administration has violated legislation by using the revenues that were supposed to be deposited in the country’s reserves to overcome the government’s budget shortages.

Parliament cited further financial violations by the Ahmadinejad administration in today’s report.

It was first reported in 2008 that the Ahmadinejad administration had not deposited $1 billion in oil revenues in the national treasury. While the head of Parliament, Ali Larijani, called for an inquiry into the matter, no concrete action was taken.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become the target of severe criticism for his mishandling of the country’s economy, which is now burdened with high inflation and unemployment and a falling national currency.

Despite the unwarranted use of oil revenues, the Ahmadinejad administration is reportedly facing a budget shortage of 740 trillion rials.

Source: Radiozamaneh

Family decries jailed blogger’s death in custody

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Family decries jailed blogger’s death in custody

Iranian blogger Sattar Beheshti, who was arrested 10 days ago by Iran’s cyber police, has reportedly been killed while in custody.

The Kaleme opposition website says prisoners in ward 350 of Evin Prison have reported that the 35-year-old blogger, who was arrested on October 28 at his mother’s home in south Tehran, was held in their ward for one night, and his body showed signs of extreme beating and abuse.

The Beheshti family was informed yesterday by authorities that their son was dead and his remains would be available the following day.

Beheshti’s sister has told Kaleme that the authorities claimed he suffered from a heart condition, but she insists her brother was in complete good health prior to his arrest.

The family has picked up his body from the Kahrizak coroner’s office, the detention centre that became notorious after the story broke that post-election protesters had died there under torture and abuse by Kahrizak officials.

The report also indicates that the family was not permitted to attend the preparation of the body for burial.

The Baztab website has reported on the death of the blogger, saying: “The sad passing of this young man is reminiscent of bitter memories of the deaths of Zahra Kazemi in Evin Prison, and Zahra Bani-Yaghoub, the physician killed in Hamadan, the death of Haleh Sahabi and the Kahrizak file, which so far has had no closure.”

Sattar Beheshti’s sister told Kaleme that she has been warned by authorities not to speak to the media; however, she claims that she is certain that her brother was killed in prison.

Source: Radiozamaneh

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