Revolutionary Guard Commanders Killed In Bombing
October 18, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
Several senior Revolutionary Guard commanders have been reportedly killed in a suicide bombing, Iranian state media says.
At least five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard have died in a suicide bombing that killed several people in southeastern Iran, Iran’s official news agency reported Sunday.
The IRNA news agency said the dead included Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, the deputy commander of the Guard’s ground force, and Rajabali Mohammadzadeh, the Guard’s chief provincial commander. IRNA reported that about 60 people were either killed or injured.
Developing….
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Iran Claims Newsweek Reporter Confessed
July 2, 2009 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
A reporter for Newsweek magazine who was arrested in Tehran has confessed to doing the bidding of Western governments, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported Wednesday.
Newsweek says Maziar Bahari has been reporting for years without bias and beyond reproach.
Maziar Bahari, 42, made his alleged confession at a news conference Tuesday. Because international journalists have been limited in their ability to gather news in Iran, CNN has not been able to confirm the agency report.
Fars reported that the Canadian-Iranian reporter who had worked for the BBC and England’s Channel 4 network admitted having filed false reports for Newsweek during the elections — a charge the magazine rejected.
“He has been reporting for years without any possible hint of bias and beyond reproach,” Newsweek Paris Bureau Chief Chris Dickey told CNN. “We think he’s one of the best reporters in the business.”
He called the report “preposterous.”
Dickey said Bahari had not been allowed to speak with a lawyer or with his family since his arrest on June 21.
Mousavi, Ahmadinejads Rival Arrested Amid Iran Rioting
Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was reportedly arrested Saturday following the reformist’s defeat at the polls by hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Supporters of Mousavi, the main challenger to Ahmadinejad, have responded to the election with the most serious unrest in Tehran in a decade and claim that the result was the work of a dictatorship.
There have been a number of contradictory reports from Iran, in large part due to the heavy restrictions imposed on the media in the Islamic Republic and in particular on foreign reporters.
Mousavi’s arrest was reported by an unofficial source, who said that the presidential contender had been arrested en route to the home of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pro-reform Mousavi has denounced the election as rigged and vowed he will not accept defeat. He and key aides could not be reached by phone Saturday.
Several hundred demonstrators – many wearing the trademark green colors of Mousavi’s campaign – chanted “the government lied to the people” and gathered near the Interior Ministry as the final count from Friday’s presidential election was announced.
As night fell Saturday, the rioting and fires continued on the streets of Tehran. The city’s cell phone network appeared to be down Saturday night. When users tried to call cell phones, a message appeared saying error in connection. There were also reports of difficulties accessing social networking sites – used by Mousavi to rally supporters.
