Iran News Round Up

A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by Critical Threats Project Iran Analyst Will Fulton. To receive this daily newsletter, please subscribe online.

(E) = Article in English 

Politics

• Assembly of Experts member and interim Tehran Friday prayer leader Ahmad Khatami  discussed the failures of the West and admonished reformists in a speech:
  • “The Global Arrogance’s [the West] 34 years of defeat is due to a lack of understanding of the Iranian nation”
  • “I provide friendly advice to the sedition: instead of stubbornness and insistence on past mistakes, join the nation and return to the fold by seeking forgiveness from the Supreme Leader and the Iranian nation”
• In an open letter published by Mehr news agency, Member of Parliament Ali Motahari praised Habibollah Asgarowladi, head of the Front of the Followers of the Imam [Khomenini] and Supreme Leadership, for his recent expression of  support for Green Movement leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and his overall attempt to prevent further political division:
  • “It is necessary for me to congratulate your Excellency for his position regarding Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karroubi, that you called them “fitneh-zadeh [affected by deviation”] not deviators.”
•  Mashhad Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Hajj Seyyed Ahmad Alam Al-Hoda said that Habibollah Asgarowladi cannot overlook the crimes of the 2009 “fitneh [sedition]”:
  • ”Mr. Asgarowladi first must answer whether Mousavi and Karroubi were led astray knowingly or unknowingly?  My position is not close to Asgarowladi.” 
• Member of Parliament and former MOIS official Javad Jahangirzadeh said in reference to the recent violence in Iraq that the West is seeking to create a new crisis in Iraq after its policies failed in Syria.
• [E] President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the Second International Quranic Recitation Competition of Islamic Countries’ Armed Forces in Tehran.
  • Questioning how a Muslim can kill another Muslim in a suicide attack while chanting “Allahu Akbar,” he said,” “[The] Quran has not allowed any Muslim to kill another Muslim or human to kill another human; Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist. The very act of a Muslim killing another Muslim originates in the fallacies inculcated in Muslims in the name of Islam…. Fomenting discord between Shiites and Sunnis is ‘an act of the Devil’, which the enemies of Islam welcome.”

Military and Security

• Armed Forces General Staff Basij Affairs and Defense Culture Deputy BG Massoud Jazayeri reported on the establishment of a Defense Propaganda Headquarters and a Soft War Base within the Armed Forces General Staff:
  • “Fortunately, the Defense Propaganda Headquarters has been established with  more strength and a new scope, such that this headquarters is connected to all of the country and not just to the armed forces, and in the sensitive conditions of the soft war, and even hard war, [this headquarters] will assist us in determining our media and advertisement models”
  • “We lately have established media and cinema think tanks…and it is very helpful for the Soft War Base…and will determine our activity in film, cinema, and television series.”
  • “Sometimes enemy media portray a violent and very powerful image of the Iranian armed forces in order to increase anti-Iranian sentiments, and this is done with a specific goal, and from another aspect they sometimes portray our forces as weak so it can be wiped out with a normal attack”
• Head of the Armed Forces Judiciary Organization Hojjat al-Eslam Hossein Rezaei said that the interference of Iran’s Armed Forces in election is poisonous:
  • “The Armed Forces must only create a secure environment for establishing elections, [they] do not have the right to enter political issues and, according to law and the will of Imam Khomeini and commands of the Supreme Leader, the Armed Forces have been forbidden from entering political games and conflicts.”

Nuclear

• [E] Assembly of Experts member and interim Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami called sanctions against Iran “futile.” He added, “[The] West aims to provoke unrest in Iran through imposing economic embargoes and pressures, but it should know that this approach is doomed to failure…. [They are] wasting time by postponing nuclear negotiations; nations will not surrender to enemies and will endure the sanctions and pressures.”

Photo of the Day

• IRGC Deputy Commander BG Hossein Salami on hand to observe the “Payambar-e Azam” military exercise in Hormozgan province.