 An Iranian university professor killed last week by a blast from a remote-controlled bomb strapped to a parked motorcycle may have been the victim of an Arab hitman, according to opposition groups. The murder of Masoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, a supporter of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader, has been blamed by the Tehran regime on “mercenaries” financed by Israel and Washington because of his role as a nuclear physicist. However, opposition groups who monitor Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese movement, in Tehran, claim that a member of the group, known by his pseudonym “Abu Nasser”, was photographed at the scene of the explosion in Tehran’s affluent Gheytarih suburb. A German-based opposition group released a photograph of a man of similar appearance who, it alleges, was one of the pro-regime demonstrators who stormed Mousavi’s office in Tehran after disputed presidential elections last June. The opposition claims the Revolutionary Guard uses Hezbollah operatives for some bloodthirsty tasks because they have a reputation for ruthlessness, and are outsiders and can always be blamed as opposition sympathisers. Tehran has gone to great lengths to suggest that Mohammadi was killed because he was a nuclear scientist, implying that he was part of Iran’s program to develop nuclear weapons. However, Majid Mohammadi, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Global Studies at Stony Brook University, New York, and also a friend, said: “He was not a nuclear physicist. He was just a physicist. I believe the Iranian [official] media highlight this word ‘nuclear’ to imply he was killed by the Israelis or Americans.” Click here for more from the Sunday Times. FoxNews
 by Kamal Hasani Within the Iranian government and its mob of followers, fractures have begun to appear. Iranian theoretical physics professor, Masud Alimuhamadi, was killed by a remote-control bomb at his house in north Tehran on January 12. Iran’s clerical dictatorship, headed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, quickly blamed the U.S. and Israel for the terrorist crime, and described Alimuhamadi as a “martyr.”
They presented no credible evidence for their accusation, and an American official dismissed the allegation of U.S. involvement as absurd. Alimuhamadi was not involved in Iran’s nuclear industry; he did not work for the country’s Atomic Energy Organization. Two days later, on January 14, hundreds of mourners for the assassinated professor filed through Tehran. They were joined by groups who chanted slogans against America and Israel.
But members of the Iranian reformist Green Movement, who also participated in the funeral march, are not convinced: Dissidents believe the slaying was carried out by the clerical regime, probably using its most extreme supporters, to demonstrate that the rulers and their fanatical adherents have the capacity and determination to keep power. Alimuhamadi was a partisan of opposition-cleric, Mir Hossein Moussavi, in last year’s presidential election -- which the reformists allege was won by Moussavi but stolen by Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. The assassinated physicist was a public speaker, a leader in the June 15 demonstration at the Tehran University campus against fascist thugs and police, who attacked the campus dormitory and killed several students. Reform activists increasingly reject Tehran’s claims that all the country’s problems are caused from abroad as just crude efforts to silence the Green Movement, divert criticism of Iran’s economic failures, and neutralize the widening demands for real democracy and freedom of expression. Reformists suspect the killing of Alimuhamadi was a specific response -- from within the regime and its periphery of violent defenders -- to the January 11 revelation that three dissidents had been beaten to death after large protests in July, with other people subjected to inhumane treatment in the Kahrizak Prison south of Tehran . The Iranian parliament had then ordered Kahrizak Prison shut down, and blamed the deaths there on former prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, an Ahmadinejad supporter and opponent of closing the prison. Mortazavi was discharged from his government position as an investigator of corruption and smuggling -- but opposition activists say that Khamenei and Ahmadinejad are afraid of the consequences if Mortazavi were arrested and tried for the Kahrizak Prison murders. A legal proceeding against Mortazavi might reveal even more shocking facts and lead to even more arrests. The assassination of physics professor Alimuhamadi is therefore perceived as a too-convenient distraction from the government’s crisis of credibility. The decision to close Kahrizak Prison is ascribed to Khamenei, who spoke from the religious center of Qom against “irresponsible groups interfering in the legal and judicial process.” Reformists warn that the ruling circle will pursue an “Iraq strategy,” in which violent street elements spread fear and insecurity. But the reformists also believe that the regime fears that Khamenei’s most radical allies will escape his control. The hardliners, however, wish to increase public fear by encouraging judges to answer protests with violent repression through the courts. Less than two weeks before the Alimuhamadi assassination, the opposition Green Movement was threatened with mass murder by the clerical government: Iranian attorney general Golamhossein Mohseni Ezjei declared, “We have decided to execute at least three of the people arrested in the demonstrations on the afternoon of Ashura [December 27, 2009], because we consider them ‘fighters against God’ (mohareb).” This threat obviously preceded any trial for the participants in the Ashura events. Although Ashura is always a major commemoration for Shia Muslims around the world, recalling the martyrdom for social justice of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, the recent Ashura observance had a special resonance: it came soon after the death of Grand Ayatollah Ali Hossein Montazeri, the leading Iranian opposition religious figure and a sharp critic of the regime of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. Clerics serving the political establishment formulated the charge that protestors are “fighters against God” (mohareb), and should be sentenced to death.” The first to proclaim this was apparently Ayatollah Alam Al-Hoda, who during a pro-government march in Tehran on December 30, said “among the protestors, some are sheep and some are goats;” he then called for the execution of Green Movement leaders. Ahmad Jannati, president of the government’s Guardian Council, during a Friday sermon on January 1, repeated and emphasized that harsh punishment should be imposed on those who are “against the Islamic Revolution and against velayat-e-faqih,” or clerical governance. Interior minister Muhammad Najjar warned protestors that if new demonstrations took place, the police would deal decisively with them, and also called them mohareb, or “fighters against God.” At the same time, Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, the head of the national police, said there would be no tolerance toward those arrested on Ashura, especially if they had fought police. Member of Parliament Ruhollah Hosseinian, planner of and a key figure in the “Cain Murders,” when at least 28 intellectuals were assassinated under the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, said a law would be introduced for “summary execution of any mohareb.” In reply, another member of parliament, Ali Motahhari, son of Murtaza Motahhari, a leading theorist of the Islamic Revolution who was assassinated in 1979 soon after the Islamic Republic was proclaimed, rejected Hosseinian’s proposal. Ali Motahhari commented that “Hosseinian loves executions too much.” Motahhari then went on Iranian television and said, “even those who do not accept the Supreme Leader or who oppose the current system should have freedom to present their viewpoint in a peaceful manner.” Mohareb, or “fighters against God,” are clearly defined in Shiism as criminal killers, bandits, or those who disturb public security and spread fear through military action. Thus, the accusation applies more to Iran’s present rulers than to the protestors. But those in power want it to be thought that anybody who rejects the government or the leadership -- and openly expresses such views -- will be sentenced to death. For this reason, the physicist Masud Alimuhamadi is logically believed to have been the victim of an extrajudicial execution. Center for Islamic Pluralism Hudson New York 
 Michael Ledeen reports some interesting events from inside Iran: - “I have learned that the Deputy Commander of the Guards in the Greater Tehran area, Brigadier General Azizollah Rajabzadeh, is in intensive care following an axe attack to his cranium by one of his crack troops. This follows the shooting of General Ahmad Reza Radan by one of his men, about which I reported earlier.”
- Ledeen says that the assassination of the pro-Mousavi nuclear scientist is a foreshadowing of a greater crackdown on the way. “…Khamenei’s personal spokesman and representative to the Guards, Ali Saeedi, who, we hear from Scott Lucas at Enduring America, has reportedly declared that the the deaths of 75,000 people will be worthwhile if the Islamic Republic is thereby preserved.”
- Planet Iran’s report on the assassination says that two known members of Lebanese Hezbollah were photographed at the scene of the crime.
Also, on January 12, a senior Khamenei representative said on T.V. that “We have manufactured missiles that allow us, when necessary, to replace (sic) Israel in its entirety with a big holocaust.” World Threats
 Iran's supreme leader has ordered security forces to take firm action against anti-government protesters. In a televised speech on Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also accused foreign powers of stoking demonstrations that have periodically rocked the country since a disputed presidential election in June. "The officials of the three forces saw for themselves what the nation is asking for, therefore, they must perform their duties well towards the corrupt and the rioters," Khamenei said in reference to the latest clashes that took place on December 27. At least eight people were killed in fighting between security forces and supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader, on the day of Ashura commemorations. The clashes were the worst violence since protests first erupted in the wake of the June election. Opposition protesters say the vote was rigged in favour of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, which the government denies. "The US and Britain and other arrogant powers, as well as their domestic misguided [allies], acted under the banner of struggle against the Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] and the revolution since the very beginning of the victory of the Islamic revolution. The situation is the same now," Khamenei said in the speech. Khomeini, Khamenei's predecessor, came to power during the 1979 revolution and instituted the idea of clerical rule. Rahesabz, an opposition website, said on Wednesday that more than 180 people, including 17 journalists, 10 Mousavi aides and some members of the outlawed Bahai faith, were arrested in the aftermath of the clashes. Iran plans to try five detainees seized in connection with the Ashura day riots who it says are members of the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), an exile group opposed to Iran's Islamic system of government. They are accused of 'moharebeh', an Islamic term meaning warring against God that carries the death penalty. Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the general prosecutor of Tehran, was quoted earlier on Saturday as saying the trial of an unspecified number of Bahais, whose faith is outlawed in Iran, will start this week. Al Jazeera
 TEHRAN, Iran — Dozens of Tehran University professors appealed to Iran's supreme leader to halt the ongoing violence against opposition protesters, a pro-reform Web site reported Monday. The letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — signed by 88 professors — was the latest daring challenge to the Iran's clerical leadership. The letter, posted on the Greenroad Web site, called the attacks a sign of weakness in the ruling system and demanded punishment for those who beat up students. It also urged Khamenei to order arrests over the hard-line crackdown, which intensified after protesters began chanting slogans against the supreme leader. At least eight people died in clashes between security forces and opposition supporters across Iran late last month, including a nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. It was the worst bloodshed since the height of the unrest immediately after disputed June presidential election. "Nighttime attacks on defenseless student dormitories and daytime assaults on students at university campuses, venues of education and learning, is not a sign of strength. ... Nor is beating up students and their mass imprisonment," the letter read. The letter referred to attacks by pro-government paramilitary Basij forces on pro-opposition students inside Tehran University campus last month. The attacks were launched after students took to the streets on Dec. 7 on more than a dozen campuses in the biggest anti-government protests in months. The professors said none of the attackers, who chanted slogans in support of Khamenei while beating students, have been punished. They demanded Khamenei also order that all students arrested in the protests be released. "Unfortunately, all these (attacks) were carried out under the pretext of protecting Islam" and the position of the supreme leader, the professors also said. Iranian students were the driving force of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and they led anti-government protests last month that revitalized the opposition movement, even as opposition leaders struggle to dent the power of the ruling establishment. Tehran University is the country's largest, with 1,480 professors and teachers, according to its Web site. A fierce government crackdown had all but crushed mass street protests that erupted immediately after June's presidential elections, which the opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by fraud. But the protests regained momentum in December and large turnouts at rallies showed months of arrests and intimidation have failed to stamp out the movement. The government has accused the West of fomenting Iran's post-election turmoil. Intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi said Monday some of those arrested in protests Dec. 27, when Shiite Muslims in Iran marked the sacred day of Ashoura, were foreign citizens. "Some of the detainees ... were foreign nationals who were leading a propaganda and a psychological war," said Moslehi, according to state TV. He said the foreigners came to Iran just two days before the Ashoura but did not specify their nationalities. Moslehi said cameras and equipment belonging to the foreigners was also confiscated. Iran has been conducting mass trials of opposition figures and activists arrested in the post-election protests. Five defendants have been sentenced to death and 81 had received prison terms ranging from six months up to 15 years. Authorities said more than 500 protesters following were arrested after the Ashoura protests and that they would be put on trial. General prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei said Monday those trials would be speedy and that some of the detainees could also face the death penalty over rioting against the ruling clerical establishment. FoxNews
 TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's opposition leader on Friday pledged to remain defiant in the face of new threats — including calls by hard-liners for his execution — and said he was ready to sacrifice his life in defense of the people's right to hold peaceful protests against the government. Mir Hossein Mousavi's remarks come after the worst unrest since the immediate aftermath of disputed June presidential election.
At least eight people died during anti-government protests Sunday, including Mousavi's nephew. Iran's state prosecutor on Thursday warned opposition leaders could be put on trial if they don't denounce this week's anti-government protests. Iranian hard-liners have called for the execution of Mousavi and other opposition figures, while a previously unknown group claimed in an online posting that suicide squads were ready to assassinate opposition leaders should the judiciary fail to punish them within a week. In one of his strongest statements to date, Mousavi on Friday said he was "ready for martyrdom" — the sacrifice of one's life for a higher cause — and lashed out at the bloody crackdown the authorities are waging against the opposition. He said the government was making more mistakes by resorting to violence and killings, and that it must accept the people's rights to hold peaceful demonstrations. "I explicitly and clearly state that an order to execute, murder and imprison (opposition leaders) ... won't resolve the problem," Mousavi said in a statement on his Web site, Kaleme. "I'm not afraid to be one of the martyrs people have offered in the struggle for their just demands." Iran's internal turmoil has grown increasingly bitter. The confrontation between clerical rulers and their opponents returned to the streets in recent weeks, after a harsh crackdown immediately following the June 12 balloting all but crushed the opposition movement. One of those killed in clashes between security forces and opposition protesters on Sunday, when Shiite Muslims marked the sacred day of Ashoura, was Mousavi's nephew, Ali Mousavi. He was buried Wednesday in a hastily organized ceremony that was attended by the opposition leader and other family members. Authorities had taken the body from the hospital earlier in the week in what was seen as an attempt to prevent the funeral from turning into another pro-opposition protest. Sunday's unrest was followed by two days of pro-government protests Wednesday and Thursday in which crowds chanted calls for the execution of Mousavi, and another opposition figure, Mahdi Karroubi. Both Mousavi and Karroubi were losing candidates in the June election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner. The opposition argues the election was rigged and that Ahmadinejad won by fraud. Some government supporters at the two days of rallies wore white funeral shrouds to symbolize a willingness to die in defense of Iran's clerical rulers. Several hundred turned out for demonstration Thursday in southern Tehran outside the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, state radio reported. In his statement Friday, Mousavi also denounced hard-liners who he said preached violence from state-funded podiums in the name of Islam. "Encouraging the killing of people ... is a tragedy carried out by specific individuals and the state TV," he said, adding that efforts to silence the opposition "through arrests, violence and threats," would not succeed. FoxNews
 HUNDREDS of thousands of government supporters took to Iran's streets overnight in a show of force against the opposition, with a senior cleric telling their leaders to repent or face death. Just hours later, state news agency IRNA reported that top opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi had fled the capital fearing for their lives but this claim quickly came under suspicion.
"Two of the chiefs of the sedition left Tehran for the north of Iran after learning that the population was increasingly angry and demanding their punishment," IRNA said.
They were said to be in the locality of Kelar-Abad, in the northern Mazandaran province on the Caspian Sea.
But Karroubi's son, Hossein, denied the report and said he saw his father last night.
"Some are trying to create a climate of fear and terror ... by spreading information about the arrest or exile (of my father) to put pressure on him," he said in a statement posted on Mehdi Karroubi's website Sahamnews.
 Iran's regime has struck back at the resurgent opposition, arresting more than 1500 people and confiscating the corpse of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi's nephew after violent protests rocked cities across the Islamic republic. The government moved to shore up its position a day after its security forces killed at least 15 protesters and wounded scores more in the worst clashes since the disputed presidential election in June.
The opposition said 1500 people had been arrested nationwide since the violence flared, including 1110 in Tehran and 400 in the central city of Isfahan. The brutality on the Shia holiday of Ashura was condemned around the world. The US administration cast aside its reticence and denounced the crackdown. US President Barack Obama condemned the Tehran regime's "iron fist of brutality" and the "violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens". During the turmoil after Iran's controversial presidential elections in June, Mr Obama - then in the midst of a diplomatic outreach to Iran - was criticised for his relative silence on the protests. France deplored the "arbitrary arrests and violence carried out against ordinary protester". Germany, Italy, Austria, Britain, Canada and Norway issued similar statements. Even Russia, one of Iran's main trading partners, called for restraint. Those killed included the opposition leader's nephew, Seyed Ali Mousavi, who was shot in the chest. Tehran was rife with speculation that he had been assassinated to send a message to his uncle, and the government moved rapidly to prevent his death becoming another rallying point for the opposition. Security forces ringed the hospital where his body was taken and used teargas to disperse protesters outside. It later emerged they had removed his body and taken it to an undisclosed location. "My brother's body was taken away from the hospital and we cannot find it," Seyed Reza Mousavi, his brother, told the reformist website Parlemannews. "Nobody accepts responsibility for taking away the body . . . We cannot have a funeral before we find the body." Iranian authorities said they were holding the bodies of five slain anti-government protesters, including the nephew of the opposition leader, in what appeared to be an attempt to prevent activists from using their funerals as a platform for more demonstrations. The violence came just days before a year-end deadline imposed by the Obama administration for Tehran to show good faith in its negotiations with the West over its nuclear program, or face new sanctions. Senior US officials said the Obama administration recogniseds that it was now at a "pivot point" in its strategy on Iran. Tehran's crackdown on protests may be fanning fresh anger at the regime in Iran. But a significant weakening of public support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be a mixed blessing for US and Western officials now trying to determine how the domestic unrest could affect negotiations with Iran. A weakened regime could be less inclined to make concessions over its nuclear program, a source of pride for many Iranians, they say.
Sanctions, meanwhile, could help shore up Mr Ahmadinejad's support by whipping up nationalistic anger at foreign meddling. The Australian
 Yesterday, Shias all over the world commemorated the 7th-century martyrdom of Hussein Ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Hussein’s martyrdom is to Shias what the crucifixion of Jesus is to Christians: The iconic event of the faith, the story of a man embracing martyrdom for a just cause. “Blood” after all, proves victorious “over the sword,” the Shia saying goes, and immortal is the one who chooses an honorable death rather than live in dishonor. Millions of men and women, young and old, religious and secular, rich and poor, went into the streets all over Iran yesterday to commemorate Hussein and to protest an unjust regime. Iranian police have confirmed the deaths of eight protesters, including the nephew of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi. They are the latest martyrs of the Iranian nation in its fight against the so-called Islamic Republic.
Thirty years after the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the regime in Tehran is neither Islamic nor republican; instead, it is fast degenerating into a brutal military dictatorship headed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Basij militia. Militarization of the Islamic Republic was accelerated after the fraudulent June 12 presidential election that secured Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in office. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iranians assembled to protest the rigged electoral process — corrupt even by the Islamic Republic’s low standards — shouting, “Give us our vote back!”
Rather than attend to the grievances of the public, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei arrogantly endorsed Ahmadinejad’s presidency and has since indirectly authorized the IRGC and the Basij to terrorize the Iranian public into submission, though he tries not to take direct responsibility. For a time repression seemed to work, and the protest movement was losing momentum. Wave after wave of crackdowns on protesters — along with the imprisonment, rape, and murder of political activists — reduced public participation in street protests, while the activists’ “confessions” of collaboration with foreign powers created an atmosphere of Stalinist terror all over Iran.
But Khamenei’s efforts may prove vain.
The older generation, which led the revolution of 1979, along with the sons and daughters of the revolution, chose the commemoration of Hussein’s revolt against injustice to protest the unjust regime.
Facing riot police and special forces, the protesters were armed with green banners and the greatest weapon available to them: the sense of moral superiority derived from a just cause. Superior in numbers, they seized police cars and freed demonstrators held captive. They confronted the riot police, asking them why they were shooting at members of their own families. Weeping youths in anti-riot gear begged for mercy.
Those eight people who sacrificed their lives for the sake of freedom have not died in vain: A week from now, a new wave of protesters will go to the streets to mourn them, no doubt igniting another round of demonstrations against the regime.
Should the regime choose to kill more of its people, the cycle will continue, and members of the armed forces will eventually recognize that they are not taking aim at foreign enemies but are killing their own people. And indeed, there are already reports of policemen refusing to obey their commanding officers’ orders to shoot the protesters.
But the victory of blood over the sword may not be close at hand. Members of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij have significantly greater political and economic stakes in the regime’s survival than do the police and the regular army.
We may yet witness another phase of the Islamic Republic as it degenerates into a naked military dictatorship, purporting to do God’s work on earth and to pave the way for the Shia messiah.
Revolutionary victory won’t be easily attained without a long struggle. The revolution of 1979 was the result of several decades of revolutionary activity, beginning in the 1950s and accelerating through the 1960s and 1970s. Similarly, 2009 is not the beginning of the end for the Islamic tyranny in Tehran. But it could be the end of the beginning of the necessary revolution.
— Ali Alfoneh is a visiting research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. NRO
 AT least 15 anti-government protesters, including a nephew of Iran opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, have been shot dead by security forces in Tehran as the smouldering confrontation between the regime and the so-called Green Movement finally erupted. Analysts heralded the start of what could be a bloody end game, as hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters poured on to the streets of Tehran and other cities and fought running battles with the security forces. Opposition websites claimed some policemen had refused to fire on demonstrators. Foreign journalists have been banned from Iran but Western newsrooms were inundated with mobile phone film of astonishing scenes as demonstrators fought riot police and the Republican Guard's feared Basiji militia. A leading opposition activist claimed: "The entire country is beginning to rise." The violence came a week after the death of dissident cleric Hussein Ali Montazeri, an inspiration to Iran reformists and a fierce critic of the clerical regime he helped to create. The violence flared on a major religious holiday, Ashura. An Iranian opposition leader condemned the killing of protesters during Shia Islam's most important observance. Mahdi Karroubi, a candidate who lost in June's disputed presidential election won by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said even the former shah's regime respected the holy day of Ashura. Ashura is the culmination of a 10-day commemoration of a revered seventh-century Shia saint, Imam Hossein, who was killed fighting injustice. The deaths could become heavy with symbolism in Iran, given that Islam bans fighting during this season. During its war with Iraq, Iran halted its attacks during this time and during Iran's 1970s Islamic revolution, protesters came out en masse against the shah on that day, assuming correctly that he wouldn't attack. "Killing people on Ashura takes this crisis to a whole other level," said Roozbeh Mir Ebrahimi, a political analyst and journalist. Analysts yesterday said that if public outrage over the violence aligns the so-far dormant religious class against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the crackdown could prove to be a milestone. Opposition websites said that demonstrators broke through cordons, blocked streets to thwart squads of baton-wielding motorbike police, hurled stones, stripped captured police officers of their uniforms and weapons and burned state-owned banks. Mobile telephone footage showed them holding aloft captured Basiji crash helmets as onlookers cheered. Film clips showed demonstrators trying to tear down Ayatollah Khamenei's portrait and trampling on a street sign bearing his name. The protester deaths were the first shootings of demonstrators since June 20, eight days after the disputed election. The opposition website Rahesabz said security forces opened fire on a crowd near Enghelab Square in Tehran after failing to disperse it with teargas, baton charges and warning shots. It was reported that Seyed Ali Mousavi, 35, the opposition leader's nephew, was shot near Enghelab Square. Reports last night said he appeared to have been assassinated in a political gesture aimed at his uncle. Mr Mousavi was said to have been run over by a 4WD vehicle outside his home, then shot. Government officials took the body and warned the family not to hold a funeral. His family said last night the body had been transferred without its knowledge to an unknown location. "We cannot find it," said Seyed Reza Mousavi. "Nobody accepts responsibility for taking away the body . . . We cannot have a funeral before we find the body." The White House strongly condemned what it called the suppression of civilians in Iran. The Australian
 Jim Hoft The nephew of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was reportedly among eight people killed in clashes between police and protesters in Tehran.
Iran Press News (Farsi) posted video of the killing in Tehran:
Aljazeera reported:
An aide to the leader said on Sunday that Seyyed Ali Mousavi died after being shot by the police, but the claim could not be independently verified as foreign news organisations are barred by the authorities from covering street unrest. Iranian state television, however, confirmed that several people were killed in clashes. Opposition websites said at least four protesters had been killed in the capital Tehran while another four died in a violent crackdown on opposition protests in the northwestern city of Tabriz. Mousavi’s Web site, Kaleme.ir, also reported that Mousavi’s nephew was among the dead today. UPDATE: BBC Video– Mousavi went to the hospital where it was confirmed that his nephew had been shot dead by the regime. With thanks to Gateway Pundit
 Iranian security forces opened fire on anti-government protesters in the capital Sunday, killing at least four people in the fiercest clashes in months, opposition Web sites and witnesses said. Thousands of opposition supporters chanting "Death to the dictator," a reference to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, defied official warnings of a harsh crackdown on any protests coinciding with a religious observance on Sunday. Iranians were marking Ashoura, commemorating the seventh-century death in battle of one of Shiite Islam's most beloved saints. Security forces tried but failed to disperse protesters on a central Tehran street with tear gas, charges by baton-wielding officers and warning shots fired into the air. They then opened fire directly at protesters, killing at least three people, said witnesses and the pro-reform Web site Rah-e-Sabz. Witnesses said one of the victims was an elderly man who had a gunshot wound to the forehead. He was seen being carried away by opposition supporters with blood covering his face. The clashes marked the bloodiest confrontation between protesters and security forces since the height of the unrest in the weeks after June's disputed presidential election. The opposition says Ahmadinejad won the June election through massive vote fraud and that its leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was the true winner. Reporters from foreign media organizations were barred from covering the demonstrations on Tehran's central Engelab Street, or Revolution Street, and the reports of deaths could not be independently confirmed. Ambulance sirens could be heard near the site of the protests. The witnesses and opposition Web site said angry protesters threw stones at security forces and set dozens of their motorbikes on fire. Police helicopters circled overhead as clouds of black smoke billowed into the sky over the capital. Police had blocked streets leading to the center of the capital to try to prevent thousands of people from joining the protest. Still, many opposition supporters managed to break the security wall. Fierce clashes also broke out Sunday between security forces and opposition supporters in the cities of Isfahan and Najafabad in central Iran, the Rah-e-Sabz Web site said. Cell phone services were down and Internet connections were slowed to a crawl, as has happened during most other days of opposition protest in an apparent government attempt to limit attention on the events. Opposition activists have held a series of anti-government protests since the death of a dissident cleric last week. The Dec. 20 death of the 87-year-old Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a sharp critic of Iran's leaders, has given a new push to opposition protests, which have endured despite a heavy security crackdown since the election. His memorials have brought out not only the young, urban activists who filled the ranks of earlier protests, but also older, more religious Iranians who revered Montazeri on grounds of faith as much as politics. Tens of thousands marched in his funeral procession in the holy city of Qom on Monday, many chanting slogans against the government. Iran's police chief, Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, had threatened tougher action against protesters on Sunday should they hold rallies. Opposition leaders have used holidays and other symbolic days in recent months to stage anti-government rallies. About 50 plainclothes hard-liners disrupted a speech by former reformist President Mohammad Khatami Saturday evening, attacking and injuring several of those who attended the speech, according to the pro-reform Web site www.salaamnews.ir. The attackers chanted slogans in support of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it said. Khatami was speaking at the former residence of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's 1979 revolution, in north Tehran on the occasion of the Ashoura holiday. FoxNews
 A BRITISH newspaper has named an Iranian woman shot dead during protests against her country's disputed June elections as its "person of the year". The Times said Neda Agha-Soltan became a "global symbol of opposition to tyranny" after images of her bleeding to death during the protests in Tehran were shown around the world. "Ms Soltan, 26, joined the protest because she was outraged at the way that the regime stole the presidential election," the newspaper said on its front page that included a photograph of protesters holding pictures of her. "She wanted to make a difference, she said. She had no idea quite what an impact she would have. Mobile phone footage of her bleeding to death on a pavement flashed around the world. "It tore the last shreds of legitimacy from the regime, made her a global symbol of opposition to tyranny, and inspired the Green Movement in a region where populations are all too easily cowed." Hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters poured into Iranian streets in week-long protests in June over the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying the vote was rigged. The demonstrations were suppressed following a call by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who gave his strong backing to President Ahmadinejad and warned the opposition against continued street protests. The opposition movement has continued however to mount protests, with some members wearing the colour green in support of defeated rival presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Iran last month reportedly denounced Oxford University after one of its colleges set up a scholarship in honour of Ms Soltan, accusing it of joining a "politically motivated" campaign. The Australian
 Can a deceased ayatollah offer in death what no one alive seems to be able to provide: a single, unifying figure for Iran's opposition? That's the central question that emerges from the weekend death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a towering figure in the history of Iran's revolutionary government. At the time of his death, he was perhaps the most credible face of the country's persistent opposition movement. The role Ayatollah Montazeri will play in death will come into clearer focus during the next two weeks. His admirers began to vent their sorrow Monday in funeral processions, at the outset of a 10-day religious holiday that figures to produce more public shows of opposition. Ayatollah Montazeri was a religious leader of considerable import -- indeed, he once was designated to become the nation's supreme religious leader -- but in the past six months was most noteworthy as the senior religious leader most openly sympathetic with the opposition movement that sprang up in Tehran's streets after June's disputed presidential election.
Yet at 87 years of age, in poor health, and restricted to the holy city of Qom, he was never likely to become the active leader of a movement opposing the regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Indeed, one of the most serious shortcomings of the opposition movement, despite its resilience in the face of concerted government attempts to squelch it, has been the absence of a catalytic personality to serve as its heart and soul.
The logical leader should be Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the presidential candidate who appeared to be robbed of his chance at victory in that June election. But he is too reserved and cautious by nature, and too vulnerable to pressure from the government, to have really stepped into that role. Mehdi Karroubi, former speaker of the Iranian parliament, and Mohammad Khatami, the former Iranian president, both also have become champions of the reform movement. Yet they also are equally exposed to government pressure. In death, though, Ayatollah Montazeri will be immune from government pressure and intimidation. His withering criticisms of the regime are on the record, and can't be compromised. It isn't unusual for revolutionary and counter-revolutionary figures to provide inspiration from the grave. Indeed, the Iranian opposition already has, to some extent, one such figure, albeit of far less stature: Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old woman whose death at the hands of government agents trying to suppress a street protest was captured on video and galvanized government foes in and out of Iran. History offers other examples. Newspaper publisher Pedro Chamorro, murdered by enforcers for Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1978, became the rallying figure for the Nicaraguan revolution in following years -- and, ultimately, the galvanizing figure for the counter-revolution that followed. Similarly, both the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro and the counter-revolutionaries that resisted him rallied around a deceased Cuban nationalist, Jos[eacute] Marti. The potential role for Ayatollah Montazeri as an opposition icon lies not just in his vocal dissents in the latter months of his life, but in the outsized role he played in his country's history over the past quarter-century. It's a role that may not be immediately apparent to those who don't follow Iranian politics closely. More at WSJ
 The Sunday Times covers how the Iranian people are changing how they protest the regime, highlighting the efforts of one of the founders of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Sazegara, who defected from the regime in 1988. According to the article, Sazegara claims the regime killed 178 people and arrested 4,000 following the June 12 “election” when the uprising hit its height. Here’s a summary of some of the tactics described in the piece:
“What I offer is non-violent tactics,” he said. “When they banned street protests, we told people to go to the roofs and shout ‘Allahu akbar’ [God is the greatest] or to drive along the streets at night, honking their horns. When they ban noise, we tell people to march in silent columns.” He and others scour texts for methods used in revolutions in eastern Europe and Latin America and most recently Ukraine. “When they stopped us writing slogans on the walls we started writing them on bank notes,” he said.
He estimates 80% of the currency is stamped with “Death to the dictator” or slogans in support of Mousavi. …He tells people to boycott goods manufactured by factories belonging to the Revolutionary Guard and to hoard small change to make daily transactions impossible. They arrange to plug in kettles, irons and hairdryers simultaneously to try to crash the power grid. He also suggests so-called “white strikes” where workers go to factories but do nothing. “The objective is to paralyse the government,” he said. Sazegara also says the opposition photographs members of the Basiji, finds their homes, and put pictures of those killed on their walls and even go to the schools of their children. He says these tactics are very effective. He also confirms that the Iranian Army is becoming less loyal to the regime, and that protestors have signs calling on them to support the people. World Threats
 Six months after Iran's disputed presidential election triggered widespread demonstrations, the country's pro-democracy movement is as strong as ever, experts say. As this week's protests show, opponents of Iran's regime have taken to using officially sanctioned demonstrations to turn out in large numbers and publicise their message. But do not expect another revolution. "This is a civil rights movement working through self-propelling acts of civil disobedience," Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University, says. "It will change the very political language of the region." Asef Bayat, a sociologist and Middle East expert, agrees. Speaking at a panel discussion last week, he argued that Iranian society is beginning to shed its revolutionary tendencies. "Iranians once saw liberation as simply overthrowing an unjust shah, without much thought as to what would come next," he said. "Thirty years later, that definition has grown to include concepts of individual civil liberties. This has led to a far more mature civil society, that seeks change in increments, not explosive revolution." The so-called 'Green Movement' was formed after hundreds of thousands of supporters of Mir Hussein Mousavi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's main rival in the presidential elections, took to the streets to protest the result of the poll. They believed that Ahmadinejad had orchestrated a massive campaign of vote-rigging that returned him to power unfairly. The demonstrations were met with a brutal crackdown, sanctioned by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader. Eventually the protests died down and the 'Green Revolution' lost its news value. The Iranian opposition disappeared from the mainstream media and went back underground, manifesting itself in postings on Facebook and Twitter and in snippets of mobile phone video posted to Youtube. While it may not be visible, some believe it is effective. Behzad Yaghmaian, an Iranian author living in the US, says that a more politically mature and multi-layered movement is emerging, and that its strength derives in large part from its non-violent character. Even Iranian children are setting an example, he says, recounting the story of a 12-year-old student who refused to step on an American flag before entering the classroom. "People of another country love this flag. Why should I disrespect them?" she asked her teacher. Yaghmaian believes the grassroots movement has bypassed the limited political demands of Mousavi and other reformist leaders and has become a more profound movement fighting for human rights. There is, he says, little desire to work within the framework of a theocratic political regime. For the first time in 30 years, people on the streets of Iran are openly rejecting the constitution of the Islamic Republic and demanding a secular republic."There's a call for political secularism emerging in Iran, a call that is coming out of the movement itself," he says. In making that call, the demonstrators are taking a risk. Iranians are well aware of the regime's willingness to use force against them, and as a result, much of the political organising is done out of view of the authorities. "They cannot have a fully fledged organised structured movement in the way that you have in Western countries, because they would easily be the target of appraisal and repression," Asef Bayat explains. Instead, Iran's Green Movement operates through loose networks of friends, family, and colleagues, says Yaghmaian. The risks are enormous. In the first half of 2009 alone, there were 196 executions in Iran. Former officials, intellectuals and journalists have received long prison sentences after brief televised trials and torture by the authorities is commonplace. "The human rights situation has deteriorated considerably," says Hadi Ghaemi, a spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. "Capital punishment is on the rise and execution sentences for political prisoners has resumed. Torture and even rape of detainees have taken place." Despites this, Ghaemi believes nothing will deter Iran's burgeoning civil rights movement. He says: "It will seize every opportunity to display its resilience." Al Jazeera
 TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian anti-government student protests continued on Sunday as debate raged over television images showing the burning of a photo of the revered Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for calm amid the anger over the images, even as he indirectly accused the opposition of creating an environment to allow such an incident to happen. State television has repeatedly shown a film clip, ostensibly taken during opposition protests on Dec. 7, of unidentified hands burning the picture of Khomeini, who remains widely respected in the country. "Some have converted the election campaign into a campaign against the entire system," Khamenei said without naming any opposition leaders. "We call on those who are angry to remain calm." Reformists, including former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Musavi, maintain that their supporters had nothing to do with the burning of the picture, which they say is being used by the regime to discredit the opposition. Dozens of police surrounded the campus of Tehran University as inside hundreds of pro-reform students protested against the accusations. The students contend the images were fabricated by government agents and are being used to justify further crackdowns on the opposition. The elite Revolutionary Guard, the country's most powerful military force, called on Sunday for the trial and punishment of those behind the move, as it continues to pressure the opposition. "The Revolutionary Guard ... won't tolerate any silence or hesitation in the immediate identification, trial and punishment of those carrying out this ugly insult and the agents behind them," it said in a statement posted on its Web site. Under the law, insult to the late or current supreme leader can lead to two years of prison. The Guard, which is tasked with defending the clerical regime that came to power in Iran in 1979 under Khomeini's leadership after the pro-U.S. shah was overthrown, was at the forefront of squashing Iran's post-election unrest. Reformists contend that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in fraudulent June contests and for months protested against the government before widespread crackdowns. The Dec. 7 rallies did see numerous attacks on the current supreme leader of the country, Khamenei. Students chanted slogans against him, burned and trampled his photos in unprecedented acts of defiance in a country where Khamenei has final say in all state matters. The actions of the students reflect how a protest movement that began by rejecting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's June 12 re-election has evolved to confront the country's ruling theocracy. FoxNews
 The solution to the crisis with Iran was visible on December 7, Students Day in that country, which marks the anniversary of 1953 anti-American protests when Vice President Nixon visited after the coup that removed Mossadegh from power. The Iranian people continued their strategy of hijacking pro-regime holidays to express their opposition and demand democratic change. On the days when the regime is supposed to appear strongest, it instead appears weakest. Liberal Middle East expert Juan Cole marveled at how widespread the anti-government demonstrations were. He described them as being larger than the previous November 4 rallies and only being surpassed by the protests following the “re-election” of Ahmadinejad in June.
These crowds were able to form despite the deployment of thousands of security forces known for their brutality, the closing of schools, the detaining of opposition leaders, and attempts to shut down the information flow with the outside world by slowing the Internet to a near halt and stopping foreign journalists from covering the events. Over 20 mothers publicly decrying the loss of their children were even arrested. The Iranian people and their leaders matched the regime’s viciousness with equal bravery. The regime admits that at least 200 were arrested (and the real number is probably far higher) and former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who challenged Ahmadinejad for the presidency in the rigged election, reacted to attacks on his wife and harassment of him by the Basiji with anger. The exact quote of what Mousavi said varies from report to report, but the general line was, “You’re agents. Do whatever you’ve been ordered to do, kill me, beat me, threaten me.” The 30 or so thugs later left and Mousavi was able to travel home from his offices to meet up with his wife who had been pepper-sprayed. The story is spreading like wildfire and will electrify the opposition. The Associated Press reported that the protestors “showed an increased boldness, openly breaking the biggest taboo in Iran, burning pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and chanting slogans against him.” According to Juan Cole, the Kurds in Sanandaj and elsewhere joined in, forcing the government to dispatch armored vehicles. Tear gas, intense blasts of water, gunfire, buses and cars with cages attached to detain protestors, steel clubs, knives, bottles and electric batons were all used in an attempt to oppress the people. More at FPM
 Once again, the courageous people of Iran have been demonstrating that, despite arrests, imprisonment, beatings, torture and state murder their spirit remains unbroken. Once again, there were protests against the regime yesterday at universities throughout Iran. Potkin Azarmehr reports: The most predominant chant was specifically directed against the Supreme Leader. It was amazing the regime had gone out of its way to prevent any information from coming out of Iran. Apart from the usual tricks, they had banned the press permits for all foreign correspondents for three days and even the public phone boxes around the universities were wrapped in black plastic bags to stop eyewitnesses reporting from the scene, yet once again they failed miserably. As Moussavi aptly said ‘They are trying to put up a barbed wire to stop a flood’. A translated report from Die Tageszeitung, published by Planet Iran, observes: Once again the Iranian opposition showed on Monday that it is not willing to give up the resistance against the clerical dictatorship. Thousands of arrests, torture and rape in prisons, which has claimed so far seventy-nine deaths caused by the long prison sentences, many show trials and forced confessions; the whole apparatus of repression has had its effect. The critics however cannot be intimidated. The regime in Tehran has largely lost its base. All propaganda attempts to attacks ‘foreign enemies’, appealing to so-called nationalist sentiment among the masses remain without response. The balance of power in the Islamic state, which so far despite the rivalries and conflicting opinions always acted consistently against ‘internal and external enemies’, no longer works. Not only the reformers have long since turned away from the governance, also formed in the conservative camp, a new front against the Ahmadinejad administration and especially against the supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In other words, the resistance of the people is continuing to weaken the Iranian regime.
The Iranian people are therefore still the west’s best hope of toppling that regime. As I have said before, it is therefore not just appalling but incomprehensible that western leaders do not support the Iranian people in this heroic resistance. In the Wall Street Journal today, Emanuele Ottolenghi makes a very sharp suggestion for what Obama should do with his Nobel Peace Prize which he receives in Oslo this week: he should give his medal to a far worthier recipient, Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Prize laureate and Iran’s foremost human rights advocate who was recently robbed of her medal, alongside several other prizes (including the French Legion d'honneur) by order of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. Ottolenghi writes: President Obama is the leader of the free world—though his tepid support for Iran's beleaguered pro-democracy movement may suggest he is uncomfortable with this role. Ms. Ebadi is the symbol of defiance against a liberticidal regime, which, to use the President's own words, represents a ‘common challenge of the 21st century,’ and one which the president still must confront.
They have the Nobel Prize in common. Let it be a way to bridge the gap between the president’s ill-fated efforts to engage Ms. Ebadi’s oppressors, and America’s historic commitment to liberty abroad. And let it be a way to turn the Nobel Prize Committee's choice into a powerful message in the service of peace—for the best way to promote peace is to champion freedom. The president's engagement strategy with the Islamic Republic has so far yielded little progress on Iran’s nuclear program, but offered much cover to Iran's regime. Clearly, internal repression is not Mr. Obama’s fault—but his premature award and his pledge to use it as an encouragement to future worthy endeavours offer him an opportunity, after past equivocations, to let Iranians know where he truly stands on the critical issue of their freedom. Alas, I think we all now know just where he stands on the issue of freedom in Iran and elsewhere. Melanie Phillips
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An Iranian university professor killed last week by a blast from a remote-controlled bomb strapped to a parked motorcycle may have been the victim of an Arab hitman, according to opposition groups. 
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