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POPSU.S. Had Covert Ties to Paki-based Terrorist in Iran Bombing The terrorist behind the Iran bombing recently was a former covert operative per Robert Baer, former CIA agent of Syriana fame. This is not unlike the former ties with Al Qaeda and bin Laden as covert operatives and "CIA brainchilds". Of course, this was done for provocatory purposes to spark Iran-British-U.S. conflict....and it appears to be working for this design. See Telegraph UK article: Iran vows revenge after claiming bomb attack was carried out by Britain A bomb attack on Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard that killed over 40 people including top generals was carried out by terrorists trained by America and Britain in nearby Pakistan , a senior commander said on Monday. See, "state-sponsored terrorism" can be alleged both ways.
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POPSBattle of Tirad Pass Trivia about the battle of tirad pass, 60 men led by Brigadier General Gregorio Del Pilar fought in Northern Luzon against major Peyton C. March to delay the american advance and also to ensure the escape of General Emilio Aguinaldo
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POPSEx-Revolutionary Guard Denounces Crackdown But Rezaei brings added weight as a former commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard - which has led the backlash against groups claiming widespread fraud paved the way for Ahmadinejad's re-election. In a letter to the head of Iran's judiciary, which is directly controlled by the ruling clerics, Rezaei said trials must be held for anyone linked to deadly attacks on the streets or torture of detainees. Among the dead is the son of one of Rezaei's top aides.
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POPSTEHRAN BUREAU: Updates from 8 Mordad (30 July) From Tehran Bureau staff: I went to the Beheshteh Zahra cemetery today. The police did not permit Mousavi or Karoubi near the graves. When the car transporting Mousavi and his wife approached, police did not even allow them out of the car. But more than 3000 people were out on the streets near Mosalla. Basij was there too. People flashed V signs with their fingers. Traffic was crazy; people kept honking their horns. People put trash bins, and one motorcycle, on fire. Police and Basij started to use tear gas. They even used it at the cemetery. The gathering at the Beheshte Zahra cemetery was supposed to be at 4 pm, but before that could happen, baton-wielding Basij and the special guard were there to break it up. Police told mourners that if they didn’t leave, they would attack. They arrested many people at the cemetery and in the streets around Mosalla. Some people started attacking police with stones; police then started to attack them.
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POPSAli Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Friday Prayer A caller to EPersianRadio.com says he is a former Revolutionary Guard member. Via a reader, "He said that mentally it's so hard, that the basiji forces may not be able to hold up. He said he served 10 years ago and he knows what goes in their mind and how much effect it has on them. Otherwise, why are they asking for volunteers now? He said when they were on alert he couldn't get any sleep and he knows how scared the forces are themselves." 9:01 AM ET -- Demonstrators reportedly swarming state media HQ. Iranians calling into EPersianRadio.com say that large crowds have gathered outside the headquarters of the state media outlet IRIB. One caller said the building was surrounded by thousands of people, and that demonstrators were trying to break in. 9:25 AM ET -- "Something profound has changed." "Iranians are losing their fear and mock the official line." http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhashemi (486 items)
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POPSThe Green Brief #23 18tir Jul 9, 2009
People were joined by their wives, fathers, mothers and children. Contrary to most reports, many elderly people were also reported to have joined the protests. At times, pedestrians would join protesters in order to increase their numbers " making it more difficult for security forces to attack. 4. Protesters chanted "Mir Hossein, Ya Hossein!" and "Death to the Dictator." Strangely enough, some slogans were directed at Mojtaba Khamenei " the son of Ayatollah Khamenei. Mojtaba Khamenei has allegedly taken control of the Basiji and is heavily involved in the government's attempt at brutally suppressing the protests. 5. Estimating how many people actually gathered in Tehran is almost impossible. What can be safely asserted, from eyewitness accounts and examination of videos, is that the numbers were more than 35,000 - that's including all the protesters and some pedestrians who joined them. Again, this number is only an estimate. http://greenbrief.newsvine.com/
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POPSU.S. frees 5 Iranian diplomats held since 2007 Two and a half years in prison without any charges being filed, without any evidence being presented, without any rights to a lawyer, no chance to defend yourself from accusations, all contact with family, friends, your own government or agencies like the Red Cross cut off No clearing of their name. This is classic injustice, another example of USA hypocrisy and cruelty, phony face and double-standards. Why all the concern on the media about Iranian election results and almost zero coverage about USA violations of its own principles? The answer, of course, is strong forces of neocon conservatives, warmongering Republicans and Zionist extremist are once against pushing for war against Iran.
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POPSBeheshti’s Ghost The mosque was crowded and hot; a restless buzz filled the air. Young girls in green headscarves and chador-clad women with green wristbands were murmuring Mir Hossein Mousavi’s name. He was rumored to be on his way to make a speech here. The service started at 6 p.m. I perched myself on a ledge on the balcony corner next to the window, overlooking the podium in the men’s section below. A muezzin launched into a long prayer, followed with a eulogy in praise of Beheshti. It was getting hotter by the moment as more people pressed in. A woman next to me whispered, “Is Mousavi really coming?” I smiled reassuringly at her, though by now " an hour had passed " I began to suspect the shadowy opposition leader was a no-show. The muezzin droned on. I was getting fed up and ready to leave. Thankfully, just then it came " a roar of cheering from outside."
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POPSIranian Suffering Dwarfed By Jackson Death Is the West morally bankrupt? If the media is correct, and more people are interested in Michael Jackson's death that what's being done to protesters in Iran, then the answer would seem to be yes.
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POPSOpposition Leader Expected to Attend Protest Outside Iran's Parliament Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is expected to attend at a rally Wednesday amid an intensifying government crackdown on protesters following the country's disputed presidential election. http://www.facebook.com/mousavi?ref=ts%2F Iran has ordered journalists for international news agencies to stay in their offices, barring them from reporting on the streets. Mousavi says he was the true winner of the election. Iran's electoral commission declared Ahmadinejad the winner by a landslide, ignoring Mousavi's claims of widespread and systematic vote fraud. Mousavi has been out of sight in recent days, but a short message posted on his Web site asserted that "all the reports of violations in the elections will be published soon." State TV reported that Ahmadinejad would be sworn in sometime between July 26 and Aug. 19.
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POPS Iran's Hidden Revolution Far from fretting about an impending attack from Israel or America, guard leaders have been warning the ayatollah that the most formidable threat to the Islamic Republic is a “soft regime change policy” involving the use of “orange revolutions” (as the hard-line Iranian newspaper Kayhan recently editorialized) Encircled by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, besieged from within by disgruntled citizens, the supreme leader has turned to a bellicose strongman to preserve the system that elevated him. Indeed, Ayatollah Khamenei " who was scorned as a religious lightweight by many more established mullahs when he was chosen for the top post in 1989 " has repeatedly shown himself willing to undercut the “Islamic” in Islamic revolution. In doing so, he has painted himself into a corner " a permanent alliance with Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guards. And this fraudulent election will only push them closer together.
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POPSWelcome Back, Carter It's not about us. The reign of the ayatollahs in Iran has an expiration date, and the ayatollahs know it. Seventy percent of Iran's population wasn't even alive in 1978, and they've had enough of the mullahs and their Basij bully boys. Whether their yoke is thrown off in 2009 or in 2012 or 2020, it's going to happen, probably within the next decade or so. I hope any sane person would agree that sooner would be better, but here's a question for all of those who are eaten up with concern over "what will they think of us?" Whenever the turn comes, what exactly will they think of us, if we turn our backs on them today? What will they think if we just hedge our bets against the ludicrous idea that we might be burning (nonexistent) bridges with the mullahs otherwise? I've meet a lot of Eastern Europeans who have pictures of Ronald Reagan on their mantles. They never forgot the way he stood up for them, in public, against the commissars.
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POPSRevolutionary Guard General Arrested: UPDATE A commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has been arrested for refusing to obey Iran's Supreme Leader, according to reports from the Balatarin website. Fazli, a veteran of the devastating Iran-Iraq war is also believed to have been sacked and taken to an unknown location. The Revolutionary Guards is a separate body to the mainstream armed forces in Iran and is seen as one of the main and most powerful bodies responsible for protecting the Islamic theocratic regime. Earlier today the Revolutionary Guards issued a warning on its website threatening to come down hard on Iranians who continue protesting against what many in the country see as rigged elections. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/20090622/revolutionary-guards-iran-iranian-protests.htm
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POPSTipping Point! We cannot see what is happening, but as The Anchoress so elegantly demonstrates, we can peak in through Twitter and other bits of information drifting out. Iran’s government is on its heels, desperately trying to get control and hide the truth of its predicament from the world. We will know soon enough which side will win out. If the thugs can be isolated and crushed, then a new Iran will rise from this fire. To me the key is the military. As this story notes, the Iranian military is very large compared to the Revolutionary Guard and their militia thugs: Khamenei also picks the head of the armed forces - the 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guard and the 400,000-strong regular forces, plus 350,000 reservists. The local police are probably another force that could tip the scales and bring Iran out of the darkness. With sufficient numbers of military and police units protecting the protestors this revolution could just happen.
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POPSWhat Just Happened? 06.17.2009 “In the most dramatic turnabout since the 1979 revolution,” they wrote, “Iran has evolved from theocratic state to military dictatorship.” If this analysis is correct – and right now, it looks like it is – the White House may need to start over from scratch. Iran is the same country it was a week ago, but it no longer has quite the same government. Some will argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad may be in a conciliatory mood because he needs talks with the United States to underscore his own legitimacy, but that can only be read as a self-serving Washington perspective. Meanwhile, the Iranian people will have suffered the consolidation of power by a ruthless regime and the transformation of a theocracy to an ideological military dictatorship. That Iran neither needs nor wants accommodation with the West.
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POPS Iran Urges Assassinations Worldwide In the editorial, Shariatmadari recounted a story from a 13 year old teenager who had gone to the front lines during the Iran-Iraq war with the permission of the mullahs’ current Supreme Leader, Ali Khamanei, and was later killed. Shariatmadari compared him and other teenagers who were sent to mine fields by the regime, to “Ghassem,” a young man who fought alongside the revered Shiite Imam Hussein in 680 and died. Today, this war is in Gaza. As the Imam used to say, with the revitalization of true Islam of Prophet Muhammad, the Great Satan roared and issued a call to all the other big and small devils. … Now that the war in Gaza is the point of conflict for all of Islam against all infidels, why should the act of confronting the Zionists only be limited to the borders of occupied Palestine? Are the people of Gaza not representing the entire Muslim world in their fight with the Zionists?
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POPS'The readiness is all'... Never ask yourself what you have learnt … Only ask yourself what are the circumstances which are different from last year. In that way, you can apply last year's lessons. Experience means that the ground is prepared. As in Hamlet's last lines, 'The readiness is all.' "
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POPSTreasury Moves Against NY Bank Allegedly Funding Iran . . . . . The U.S. government alleged that ASSA Corp. was created by Bank Melli to hold its interest in a building located at 650 Fifth Ave. in New York. The building's construction had been partly financed by a Bank Melli loan, Treasury said. ASSA Corp. co-owns the 36-story building through a partnership formed with the Alavi Foundation of New York, called 650 Fifth Avenue Co., the government said. The United States alleged that ASSA Corp. "has repeatedly transferred rental income generated from the 650 Fifth Avenue partnership back to Bank Melli through ASSA Co. Ltd." The government alleged that ASSA Corp. has shared financial and other information on a regular basis with Bank Melli. The department said its action does not interfere with the business or other activities of the building's tenants.
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