Iran Hangs Two Men for Spying for CIA and Mossad

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence reported today two men convicted for spying for the CIA and Mossad in a revolutionary court were hanged today.

Kourosh Ahmadi and Mohammad Heidari were accused of providing intelligence on Iran to the CIA and Mossad respectively. The intelligence ministry’s report did not say when the men were arrested or tried.

Photo credit: Kourosh Ahmadi who was hanged today in Iran on charges of spying for the CIA. 19 May 2013 (Reporters Club/Tabnak)

Iran’s Intelligence Minister Accuses Rafsanjani of Links to 2009 Protests

Amid Expectations Rafsanjani Might Enter Presidential Race

Iranian Minister of Intelligence Haydar Moslehi today said former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani "had hand" in 2009 protests that followed the disputed presidential elections.

“We have precise information that this gentleman (Rafsanjani) had hand in the sedition; notwithstanding his claims that he had forecast the events of 2009 and repeating ‘he said this and warned that,’” said Moslehi. (Mashreq, 2 May)

“This person who was a part of the sedition, but the regime for some considerations did not put him under the house arrest like the other two and gave him freedom of action, today should not think that the revolutionaries have forgotten his actions and the role he played in the sedition.”

Moslehi’s open threat against Rafsanjani comes amid growing concerns that the elder statement of the Iranian politics might enter the presidential race. If he does, his candidacy would pose a formidable challenge to anyone picked by the ultraconservatives to run in the election and his presidency might become a fatal blow to their cause.

It is also interesting to see that despite Ayatollah Khamenei’s advice on Wednesday prohibiting senior officials from making accusatory comments against each other during the election campaign, the minister of intelligence, with his vast secret police network, should accuse a founding father of the Islamic Revolution who has served as a commander in chief during the war with Iraq and as Majlis speaker and the president of the country, and was instrumental in the selection of Khamenei as the supreme leader after Khomeini’s death, of sedition against the Islamic Republic.

File photo: Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (hashemirafsanjani.ir)  

Ahmadinejad Calls for Direct Negotiations with the U.S.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters in Bali that Iran’s nuclear program has been turned into a political issue and the impasse over the program should be resolved directly between Iran and the United States. (IRNA, 8 November)

Ahmadinejad’s remarks were the latest by a senior Iranian official suggesting that Iran-U.S. direct negotiations over the country’s nuclear program are not only acceptable but desirable. On Wednesday, Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary of Iran’s High Commission for Human Rights and brother of both the speaker of Majlis and the Judiciary chief, said “To protect the interests of the regime, we would negotiate with the U.S. or anyone else.”

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence also posted a report on its Website on Wednesday saying to avoid military conflict over the nuclear issue, Iran needs to take “diplomatic and political measures and use the potentials of international bodies, which is a necessary and less costly option.”

The MoI report, titled “Reasons and Obstacles of a Military Attack by the Zionist Regime Against Iran,” also makes a clear distinction between positions by the Israeli government and the U.S. administration. It says President Obama “hopes to solve this issue peacefully and through diplomacy.”

In Bali, Ahmadinejad also told reporters that Iran needs to examine, “Why and who broke diplomatic relations with the U.S. some 33 years ago.” He added that he believed in existence of diplomatic relationships based on mutual respect.

Photo credit: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a press conference in Bali, Indonesia. 8 Novermber 2012. (IRNA)

Iran Intelligence Minister Warns of Attempts to Change Established Order

Alliance of Greens and Circles Close to Ahmadinejad Opposing Supreme Leader

Iran’s Minister of intelligence Hojatoleslam Moslehi addressing the Assembly of Experts said the “seditionists” (supporters and the Green Movement) and “deviationists” (a political circle close to President Ahmadinejad) have secretly formed an alliance for the upcoming parliamentary elections in early March. He called the new alliance the most complex problem facing the Nezam (“established order”).

“The Ministry of Intelligence is highly vigilant and it will not allow this alliance (of seditionists and deviationists) to derail the Majlis elections,” Hojatoleslam Moslehi said [ISNA, 6 September].

“The seditionists and the deviationists, each with its own peculiarities, are working to seriously undermine the established order and Velayat Faghih (the rule by supreme leader),

“The seditionists and the deviationists regard winning the parliamentary and the presidential elections as the only path to change the established order,

“They are capitalizing on people’s grievances, they are using scare tactics, and they are calling for normalization of relations with the US as means to find support among the public,

“They are opposing the policies of the supreme leader, emphasizing ultra nationalism, emphasizing so-called modernity, emphasizing the defeat of Islam and the cleric (in governing the country),

“By using a reformist language, they are trying to gather the support of all the reformists in the country,” Hojatoleslam Moslehi said [ISNA, 6 September].