Women’s rights activist and a member of a group supporting human rights in Iran arrested last week.
Security forces arrested 25-year-old Maryam Salehi, a student in Tehran, last week. She participated in several campaigns for human right, and was arrested at her father’s home by agents in civilian clothing. Her family has not yet managed to obtain any information about her condition or whereabouts.
Source: Iran Daily Brief
Fifty days after the arrest of engineer, Hossein Zadeh Masoud, formerly one of the most prominent student activists from the Azeri minority, information leaked out of jail claims that his physical condition has deteriorated significantly. The ban on phone conversations with his family exacerbates his family’s concerns. Masoud was arrested by security forces in front of his home, after they beat him very violently. To date, no official information has been provided about the allegations against him.
Source: Iran Daily Brief
Mohammad Sadiq Kaboudvand, a prisoner of conscience who ended his 60-day wet hunger strike on July 27, told his family during his visit with them on August 27 that if the authorities do not address his requests, he will start a hunger strike and will not break it again. Kaboudvand ended his last hunger strike after authorities promised him that if he breaks his hunger strike they would review his request for furlough to be with his sick son.
“We didn’t hear anything after he ended his hunger strike. We learned later that apparently the Tehran Prosecutor did not agree with his furlough. I gather they are not going to give him furlough and that his hunger strike was not effective, either. Sixty days on hunger strike is no small deed, and it will leave irreparable damage on Mohammad’s body and soul; so will the constant stress and the psychological pressure we had during that time. It will be lethal if we have to go through it again,” said Kaboudvand’s wife, Parinaz Baghban Hassani, in an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
In 2007, authorities arrested Mohammad Sadiq Kaboudvand, Secretary of Kurdistan Human Rights Organization and manager of the publication Payam-e Mardom. A year later, the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced him to 11 years in prison on charges of “propagating falsehoods with the intent to create public anxiety” by establishing the Kurdistan Human Rights Organization. He has been deprived of basic prisoner rights such as furlough, in-person visitation, and suitable and timely medical treatment. Kaboudvand’s 22-year-old son has cancer and following a deterioration in his health, Kaboudvand embarked on his 60-day hunger strike to receive furlough to be with his son.
“His physical problems and kidney pain persist. Despite prison authorities’ saying that they would send him to a hospital for treatment if he broke his hunger strike, it didn’t happen and they keep injecting him with painkillers in prison,” Kaboudvand’s wife said about his physical conditions.
Since his 2007 arrest, Mohammad Sedigh Kaboudvand has not had a single day of furlough. “Mohammad has not requested a pardon yet, because he believes that he has not committed any crime…we just want all his rights as a prisoner to be observed, and for him to have the right to furlough. That’s all,” added Parinaz Baghban Hassani.
Mohammad Sadiq Kaboudvand began publishing Payam-e Mardom in 2003. The publication was available in Kurdish and Farsi languages in Tehran and provinces where Kurdish Iranians lived. In March 2006, he established the Kurdistan Human Rghts Organization. In 2009, he was chosen as the “International Journalist of the Year” by the British Press Awards and received Human Rights Watch’s Hellman Hammett Award.
Source: Iran Human Rights
International Atomic Energy Agency to put more pressure on Tehran as concerns are raised over country’s nuclear aspirations.
The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s nuclear programme due out on Thursday is expected to say that Tehran has rapidly increased the quantity of equipment at an underground uranium enrichment plant but has not started using the new machinery to produce nuclear fuel.
The IAEA quarterly report will say that more than 300 centrifuges have been installed at the fortified cavern at Fordow, near the city of Qom, but are not yet spinning, and the rate of uranium production has not risen since the last report in May.
The IAEA inspectors will also complain about Tehran’s lack of cooperation with their investigation into alleged past Iranian nuclear weapons work. Attention will be drawn in particular to its refusal to allow them into a suspect site at Parchin, where satellite images show buildings being bulldozed and covered with earth in what IAEA officials believe is an attempt to “sanitise” the area of incriminating trace elements.
In an effort to intensify the IAEA investigation, the agency is forming an Iran Task Force to focus on allegations of a secret weapons programme. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, was reported to have raised international concerns about Tehran’s nuclear aspirations at a meeting on Wednesday with the country’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
During his visit to the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Tehran, Ban also registered “serious concerns” over Iran’s human rights record.
“We have discussed how United Nations can work together with Iran to improve the human rights situation in Iran. We have our serious concerns on the human rights abuses and violations in this country,” he said.
Western officials said that while the new IAEA quarterly report on Iran shows that the Tehran government continues to flout Security Council resolutions calling for a suspension on enrichment, there is no sign of a “game-changing” acceleration in the programme that would warrant the military action threatened by Israel.
Alarmed by claims by the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, that the report showed Iran was “continuing to make accelerated progress toward achieving nuclear weapons while totally ignoring international demands”, US and European governments took the unusual step of giving briefings, before IAEA inspectors presented the report to member states, to play down its significance.
Western officials believe that while Iran is steadily increasing its capacity to make nuclear weapons in the future, its leadership has not yet made the political decision to do so. Tehran insists its programme is intended entirely for generating electricity and producing medical isotopes.
The Obama administration is particularly nervous that Netanyahu might order attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities at the height of the US presidential campaign in the hope of drawing Washington in, under pressure from pro-Israeli public opinion. A White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, broke precedent by commenting on the expected report before publication by insisting “there is still time and space” for diplomacy in the long-running nuclear stand-off.
The Fordow site is especially sensitive firstly because the centrifuges are being used to make 20%-enriched uranium, which could be used for medical research but which could also be further enriched to become weapons grade. Secondly Fordow’s heavy defences mean it would be very hard to destroy with air strikes, leading the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, to claim that once Iran had completed the plant it would have entered “a zone of immunity”, which would have to be prevented at all costs.
The last IAEA report in May said that 1,064 centrifuges had been installed in one of two enrichment halls in Fordow, each with a capacity of about 1,400, but less than 700 of the installed machines were in production.
Iran has now produced about 190kg of 20% enriched uranium, which would be enough for one nuclear warhead if further enriched. But nearly 100kg of that total has been converted into reactor fuel plates – these would harder to turn into material for a bomb.
“It’s more of the same,” said Jim Walsh, an expert on the Iranian nuclear programme from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, arguing that Iran’s desire to install more of its centrifuges underground was understandable under threat of air strikes. He added that Iran had already entered a “zone of immunity” in Israeli terms, because if it did want to make nuclear weapons, it would probably be too late to stop it militarily.
“You can’t bomb the knowledge out of their heads and you can’t destroy Fordow.”
Source: Guardian
According to Mohammad Tavokoli, several people in civilian clothing arrived to arrest him and several members of the Kurdish Teachers Associations. The teachers demanded to see the IDs of the arresting parties, but were refused. Tavakoli was then beaten violently.
Source: Iran Daily Brief
IranBriefing – For the last 24 years, since Ayatollah Khamenei took power, the IRGC realized that the best and most efficient way to fight its future enemies will be Human Robots who would think and act as they are told and programmed by IRGC commanders. During the 8 years of Iran-Iraq war more than 1 million people were killed and became disabled on both sides. The loss was grave during the last years of Iran-Iraq war, and unlike the first few years of the war when volunteers ranging from 13 to 75 years old were pouring to the battle fields, it was becoming cumbersome to convince people to volunteer to fight. This, among other things, finally pressured Iran to accept United Nations Resolution 598. It was this war that laid the foundation for the IRGC to come up with a better way to fight future battles or have a hegemony in the region.
During the 8 years of the Iran-Iraq war, Ayatollah Khomeini and the media that was in full control were very successful in persuading the young and elderly men and women to rush to the war and support the military machinery. People from basically every walk of life, from farmers to university professors, participated in the war. They were dying in thousands during major combat efforts. They were fearless to walk over the mines and were shattered in pieces in the name of Islam and martyrdom. The promise was a paradise with dozens of virgins. This was a great motive for many. But for those who were not motivated by the intangible paradise and virgin beauties, the regime had other things in mind: better or high paying jobs, positions, housing, discounted household and so on. But then Khomeini was getting old and the country’s resources were draining, and the fatigue slowed down the military machinery that the IRGC was counting on. The war ended when IRGC no longer had resources to continue the war and Khomeini accepted the defeat. The Iranian population was around 40 million, the oil refineries were not working even with half their capacities, income from oil was miserable, morale was in its lowest point, and the country’s political system and media were tired of war. The IRGC needed to have a full control on all as 
well as having unlimited human and financial resources to fight the next war without a defeat. They came up with a plan to control Iran’s economy, politics, and they already were in control of the military.
It took IRGC about 20 years to have a total grip on all three branches of the government. Now, they are not only in control of judiciary, executives, and legislative of the government, but they are also governors, mayors, member of parliaments. They are in control of sport, schools and universities and in control of their curriculum, and they have even just started controlling kindergartens. Most importantly, they control the largest and most profitable companies in telecommunications, the oil industry, the gas industry, the petrochemical industry, the stock exchange, and basically wherever there is money and power. They have their own port and customs; they do not pay a penny as tax, and even if they start paying custom dues or taxes, their money is going to go to their own pocket since they are in full control of the budget and where the money has to be spent.
Power of Religion and Fatwas
Very soon IRGC realized that they could expand their grip beyond what they had envisioned. They figured out that the only factor that was able to send people over the mines during the Iran-Iraq war was the power of religion. In the aftermath of the fraudulent Iranian election in 2009 where many poured into the streets to protest the election results, many were arrested, tortured in prisons, and forced to confess crimes 
they had no clue of. However it was very difficult to get confession from some prisoners. The IRGC had a way to get confessions from those who were not yielding to tortures: raping prisoners, a method that would demoralize almost any prisoners no matter how strong they are. But they needed a religious Fatwa or justification for it, and it was not easy to get. Even though many religious clerics condemned that method, they were able to find a few Ayatollahs such as Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi who would not only give permission for it and justify it religiously, they made that act even a reward for them in the day of Judgment. This powerful religious fatwa that allowed IRGC to enable people to commit the most despicable act prompted them to rein on this power and have a full control on that as well. This was the first stage of creating Human Robots.
Discerning Ambassadors
IRGC’s agenda was to immediately have a full control over religious clerics by decommissioning or retiring the existing clerics and building its own religious seminaries and training its own clerics and Ayatollahs. The project was called “Discerning Ambassadors” that started more than 2 years ago and it has completed its first phase successfully. These religious students or “Discerning Ambassadors” who are also official IRGC members soon would become Ayatollahs and will replace any institutions or 
government bodies where Ayatollah Khamenei has his own men. IRGC has also been planning for a day when Ayatollah Khamenei is dead or not in power. These “Discerning Ambassadors” could justify any crimes IRGC would imagine committing. These “Discerning Ambassadors” are programmed, trained, and ordered to give a religious Fatwa on any despicable act in the name of religion. For example today we could see them easily justifying funding money to the Syrian regime that so far has killed more than 25,000 of its own people. These “Discerning Ambassadors” are all over in social media, cyberspace, and virtual world such as Facebook as well as they are present physically in countries such as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and other places as part of Quods Force. Their main role in social media, such as Facebook, is to guide the attention and discussion away from Iran’s internal problem toward IRGC’s interest inside Iran and around the world. Today we see thousands of users in various Social Media as virtual agents of IRGC, some are defending IRGC and some are acting as opposition to the Iranian regime and IRGC to spy on users all over the world. With billions of dollars from the oil money controlled by IRGC funding thousands of users is not a difficult task.
The Next War
IRGC’s goal is to dominate the region today and the world tomorrow. If they are not stopped today, the next war is near. IRGC prepares for the coming of Mahdi or Messiah, an ideology that is strongly rooted in Shia religion, and IRGC and the Islamic Republic have capitalized on it for its survival by crushing the opposition the West wants to prevent Mahdi from coming. They believe Mahdi will come and bring justice with him,
and before that a war has to break out and Israel has to be destroyed. This is why IRGC is so reckless on all its decisions and drags Iran into another war with the West. For its survival, IRGC needs a nuclear bomb that can reach Israel and Europe, and for that it needs time. This is the only way IRGC can threaten the West to yield to its demands. Time has run out for IRGC, and the only option to get more time is to start a war in the name of religion. Democracy and freedom of speech is the end of IRGC in Iran; therefore, the world would need to push for it, not for the sake of the Iranian people, but for the sake of freedom and peace in the region and the whole world. This is a task that neither Iranians can do by themselves, nor the world can do humanely without the Iranian people. Unlike other events such as Arab Spring or the uprising in Syria, the situation in Iran is very different, IRGC is in every part of the ordinary Iranian people’s life (religion, politics, economy, daily life at work or at home). It is like a cancer that has spread all over the body and the body can not fight it anymore. Either the cancer has to stop on its own (coup d’état by some brave IRGC members), or it has to be destroyed with all forces available (Iranian people and Western countries who care about tomorrow).
From Security Charges to Moldy Bread: Details of Earthquake Camp Raid and Arrests.
In an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Ahmad Ronaghi Maleki provided details about the raid on the earthquake relief camp and the brutal arrests of volunteers, including verbal and physical abuse.
Two days after police and plainclothes forces attacked the earthquake relief camp and arrested 35 relief workers on Thursday, August 23, ten detainees (all of the female and three of the male detainees) were released on bail. The rest of the relief workers were transferred to the Central Prison of Tabriz, according to Kaleme website.
The camp is located a few kilometers from Varzaghan village around a plastics manufacturing plant. Relief workers collected donated goods and used the factory’s warehouse to store supplies. Some of the 35 relief workers were students and civil activists who had set up tents around the factory, where they lived.
Kaleme website reported that male relief workers were transferred to Ahar Moral Security Base and female relief workers were transferred to the town’s Investigative Police Office. Within the first few hours, three judges from the judicial complex of the town of Khajeh informed the detainees they were being charged with “political activities through helping the earthquake victims.” However, during interrogations with Ahar intelligence forces, they were accused of “threatening public health through distributing unsafe food items.”
On Sunday, August 26, confirming the arrests of more than 30 individuals in the earthquake-hit areas of Azerbaijan province, in an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA), Hojat-ol-Islam Malek Ajdar Sharifi stated, “Several individuals arrived to this region as relief workers to help the Eastern Azerbaijan people affected by the earthquake, but because the items and goods they had brought to distribute had expired ‘use-by’ dates, they were arrested. He added, “These suspects intended to distribute goods such as expired canned foods and moldy bread among the earthquake victims. This issue is under the review of health and law experts.”
In an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Ahmad Ronaghi Maleki, one of the arrested relief workers released on August 23, spoke about the incident. Ronaghi Maleki was at the camp along with his sons Hossein and Hassan Ronaghi Maleki; his sons are still being held. Hossein Ronaghi Maleki is a political prisoner who had been out on medical furlough. The family went to the earthquake region to help victims.
ICHRI: When did this camp start its activities and where exactly is it located?
Ahmad Ronaghi Maleki: This camp was set up one day after the earthquake by several people from Tabriz and from other cities. We rented the warehouse of a plastics factory on the Varzaghan Road to keep and distribute people’s donations. At first, we started with three trucks, and little by little, as more volunteers from other cities came, the number of trucks and donations increased. All the kids had set up tents around this factory. We worked really hard day and night and distributed the goods containing clothing, food items, hygiene items, and all kinds of other things, to earthquake victims. We weren’t doing anything political there. What was our crime?
ICHRI: How did the attack on the camp happen?
Mr. Maleki: On the afternoon of August 23, forces from Khajeh Police came and told us that we must evacuate and relinquish the collected goods to them. They said that the food items inside the warehouse were unsafe. We told them we would stop the food distribution and wait for them to dispatch a representative from the Health Office, and if that representative said after tests that the food inside the warehouse was unhygienic, we would relinquish the goods to the police and go. We even asked that they send a representative from the Red Crescent or the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation, so that we could hand over all the collected goods with a complete list and leave. We even took them inside the warehouse and showed them the food items. They said everything looked good and left, but a few hours later, several vehicles full of police forces and forces from the Khajeh Police and plainclothes forces poured in and beat us up inside the warehouse and took us away. One of the forces punched Hossein in the stomach several times and when I objected, he punched me several times, too. Then they blindfolded and handcuffed us and even abused us during the drive. They even insulted me, disregarding my older age, and kept saying rude things to me and the others.
ICHRI: Where did they transfer you?
Mr. Maleki: I don’t know where they took us. Our eyes were blindfolded; I couldn’t see. I was there one day. I was interrogated and then released. But I consider this act illegal, against Sharia, and inhumane. If helping the earthquake victims is a crime, they should have announced that people are not supposed to help the earthquake victims. Nowhere in the laws or Sharia does it say that helping another human being is an offense. If I have a problem and others help me, is it considered a crime?
ICHR: Were the reasons for the raid on the camp and your arrest mentioned in the interrogations? What exactly was your charge?
Mr. Maleki: Well, in the interrogations, they only said that our charges were distribution of unhealthy food items to earthquake victims. Frankly, I am confused, I don’t know. The Khajeh police forces must explain the reasons for all those insults on us.
ICHRI: Were the goods inside the warehouse transferred? What happened to the items inside?
Mr. Maleki: I don’t know. I was released on Thursday and with the way I had been treated, I didn’t go back to check on the warehouse.
ICHRI: Could you provide a rough estimate of how much stock was inside the warehouse?
Mr. Maleki: There were about 10 to 15 truckloads of goods in there.
ICHRI: In a news article, the Young Journalists Club announced that the detainees were all affiliated with foreign states, or were Baha’is whose aim was to propagate the Baha’i faith. What do you think about these claims?
Mr. Maleki: This is an absolute lie. I am a Muslim and a Seyed [considered a descendent of Prophet Mohammad]. There were no Baha’is there at all. Everyone was a Shia Muslim. There is no way anybody could propagate the Baha’i faith in the middle of an earthquake and so much sorrow! All the people in that group were Muslims who were helping earthquake victims for God’s satisfaction. Whoever wrote this news only wanted to manufacture rumors.
ICHRI: Why do you think they wanted you to evacuate the camp?
Mr. Maleki: Well, they say the government wanted to distribute the goods itself, without other people’s interference. But people are also entitled to help their fellow countrymen who have been affected by an earthquake.
ICHRI: Were any of the relief workers hurt when the forces beat them?
Mr. Maleki: A few of them were badly beaten. I don’t know. I had pain in my chest and my blood pressure went up. But I should also add that some of the agents behaved very well, while others behaved very badly.
ICHRI: Were the female relief workers beaten, too?
Mr. Maleki: I didn’t see it. Hossein and I were sitting upfront. When they were punching Hossein and he kept saying “my kidneys, my kidneys,” I wasn’t paying any attention to anyone else. I could only see my son. But, really, what was our crime? We worked around the clock for several days, we collected items and distributed them among the people. The Khajeh police forces must be accountable for this incident.
Source: Iran Human Rights
Commanders and Hundreds of Elite Soldiers Deployed to Damascus, Members Say, as Deepening Conflict Worries Key Ally
Iran is sending commanders from its elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and hundreds of foot soldiers to Syria, according to current and former members of the corps.
The personnel moves come on top of what these people say are Tehran’s stepped-up 
efforts to aid the military of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with cash and arms. That would indicate that regional capitals are being drawn deeper into Syria’s conflict—and undergird a growing perception among Mr. Assad’s opponents that the regime’s military is increasingly strained.
A commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, appeared to offer Iran’s first open acknowledgment of its military involvement in Syria.
“Today we are involved in fighting every aspect of a war, a military one in Syria and a cultural one as well,” Gen. Salar Abnoush, commander of IRGC’s Saheb al-Amr unit, told volunteer trainees in a speech Monday. The comments, reported by the Daneshjoo news agency, which is run by regime-aligned students, couldn’t be independently verified. Top Iranian officials had previously said the country isn’t involved in the conflict.
Iran has long trained members of the Syrian security apparatus in cybersecurity and spying on dissidents, U.S. officials and Syrian opposition members have said. The decision to send Iranian personnel comes after rebel attacks this summer in Syria’s biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, in particular an explosion in July that killed four members of Mr. Assad’s inner circle, according to the people familiar with the IRGC.
Syria’s regime is increasingly relying on a core of loyalists to conduct operations, say Syrian opposition members and rebel fighters. In recent weeks, Mr. Assad’s army has been hobbled by defections, losing territory in Kurdish areas as well as near Turkey’s border, these people say. On Monday, a Syrian military helicopter crashed in a ball of fire in Damascus, according to the Associated Press, citing activists and video footage.Syria’s uprising has placed Iran in a foreign-policy predicament. As the Arab Spring unfolded in countries including Libya, Egypt and Bahrain, the Islamic Republic cast its own revolution as an inspiration for the uprisings.
But Tehran didn’t support the protesters in Syria—its closest ally in the region, the conduit between it and the Lebanese Shiite militant and political group Hezbollah, and a gateway for Iranian influence in the Arab world. Iran’s most influential voices, including its supreme leader and the political and military power structures, have steadfastly supported Syria’s president and, like Mr. Assad, have blamed the country’s violence on foreign meddling and terrorists.
But in continuing to support Mr. Assad, Tehran’s popular support in the region appears to have waned. Some elements of the government appear to be hedging bets: In the past few months, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has reached out to some Syrian opposition members, offering to mediate between the two sides.
Those efforts appear to be overshadowed now by Iran’s support for the Syrian military in its fight against the rebel insurgency, according to analysts and the former and current guard members.
“One of Iran’s wings will be broken if Assad falls. They are now using all their contacts from Iraq to Lebanon to keep him power,” Mohsen Sazegara, a founding IRGC member who now opposes the Iranian regime and lives in exile in the U.S., said by telephone.
On Thursday, Iran’s defense minister publicly signaled a shift. If Syria fails to put down the uprising, Iran would send military help based on a mutual defense agreement between the two countries, two Iranian newspapers quoted Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi as saying. Syria hadn’t asked for assistance yet, he added.
“Syria is managing this situation very well on its own,” he said. “But if the government can’t resolve the crisis on its own, then based on their request we will fulfill our mutual defense-security pact.”
Syria’s crisis tops the agenda at the summit of Non-Aligned Movement nations this week in Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Thursday that Iran would announce a surprise peace plan for Syria during the five-day conference, which started Sunday.
In Tehran, Syrian National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar met Monday with several Iranian officials and expressed Syria’s gratitude. “The people of Syria will never forget the support of Iran during these difficult times,” Mr. Haidar said, according to Iranian media.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final word in all state matters, has appointed Qasim Solaimani, the commander of the elite Quds Forces, to spearhead military cooperation with Mr. Assad and his forces, according to an IRGC member in Tehran with knowledge about deployments to Syria.
The Quds Forces are the IRGC’s operatives outside Iran, responsible for training proxy militants and exporting the revolution’s ideology. The U.S. blames the Quds Forces for terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Solaimani has convinced Mr. Khamenei that Iran’s borders extend beyond geographic frontiers, and fighting for Syria is an integral part of keeping the Shiite Crescent intact,” said the IRGC member in Tehran. The so-called Crescent, which came together after Saddam Hussein’s fall, includes Shiites from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.
Iran is now sending hundreds of rank-and-file members of the IRGC and the basij—a plainclothes volunteer militia answering to the guards—to Damascus, said two people in the IRGC familiar with the movements.
Many of the Iranian troops hail from IRGC units outside Tehran, these people say, particularly from Iran’s Azerbaijan and Kurdistan regions where they have experience dealing with ethnic separatist movements. They are replacing low-ranking Syrian soldiers who have defected to the Syrian opposition, these people said, and mainly assume non-fighting roles such as guarding weapons caches and helping to run military bases.
Iran is also deploying IRGC commanders to guide Syrian forces in battle strategy and Quds commanders to help with military intelligence, Mr. Sazegara and the current IRGC members said.
A Syrian helicopter hit over Damascus, according to a video account.
On the other side of Syria’s conflict, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have funded and armed opposition rebels, while Turkey has allowed them to keep an unofficial base near Syria’s border. Foreign Arab fighters, many of them extremist Jihadist, have also flocked to Syria to fight alongside rebels.
Iran has also started moving military aid and cash to Syria through Iranian companies in Iraq, such as a construction company owned by a former IRGC member now living in Iraq and a tour company servicing pilgrims to holy Shiite sites, said Mr. Sazegara and a person in Iran familiar with the construction company.
The IRGC and Syrian forces are working together to free 48 Iranian hostages kidnapped by a unit of the opposition Free Syrian Army this month, according to two IRGC officials in Tehran as well as comments from an Iranian parliamentarian in Damascus this week.
Iran at first denied the kidnapped Iranians had any link with the IRGC. But Mr. Salehi later said some of the hostages were retired members of the IRGC, calling them Iran’s “most dear and beloved.” Iranian opposition media, meanwhile, have named four of the men, calling them current IRGC commanders from various Iranian provinces.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria said recently that the hostages’ whereabouts have been determined and that Iran is negotiation with Syria on how to rescue them, Iranian media reported. The envoy also said Iran and Syria had formed a joint committee, with intelligence, policy and military experts, for the rescue mission. Iranian media said Monday that this committee sends Mr. Assad regular updates of their findings.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Nessim Soltan Bigi, a student activist from Allameh Tabatabaei University, was summoned to serve a four-year prison sentence on charges of harming national security and anti-regime propaganda.
Source: Iran Daily Brief
The vast majority of National Security and Foreign Policy Committee are members of caucuses who belong to strong supporters of Ayatollah Khamenei (Rahrovan Velyat Caucuses), this caucuses is fully under the control of IRGC. 20 members out of the 29 members of this committee who are members of this caucuses are the followings:
1- Seyyed Hossein Naghavi Hoseini
2- Javad Jahangirzadeh
3- Mansour Haghighatpour
4- Mohammad Ashouri
5- Avaz Heidarpour
6- Fathollah Hosseini
7- Hossein Sobhaninia
8- Kazem Jalali
9- Alaeddin Broujerdi
10- Mohammad Hassan Asfari
11- Seyyed Ahmad Reza Dastgheib
12- Vahid Ahmadi
13- Mehdi Davatgari
14- Ebrahim Agha Mohammadi
15- Ahmad Shouhani
16- Safar Naeemi
17- Mohammad Esmaili
18- Hojjatollah Khodai Souri
19- Hadi Shoushtari
20- Mohammad Reza Mohsen Sani
These informations are compiled by Iran Briefing’s Research Team, please send us your suggestions or additional informations you would think might be useful to include here.
