Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, May 10 – When Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri went missing during a pilgrimage to Mecca last summer, Ministry of Defence intelligence officials promptly warned his relatives not to alert anyone to his disappearance.
Exclusive: What Iran’s nuclear expert who defected knows
Hundreds protest in Tehran over political executions
Iran Focus: Tehran, May 10 – Hundreds of people are protesting in central Tehran in apparent condemnation of the execution on Sunday of five Kurdish political prisoners.
Toughen up on Tehran
Iran Focus: On May 3, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at the United Nations in New York. Having the number one violator of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at a conference designed to strengthen the treaty is indeed baffling.
Iran war games continue with home-built torpedo test
Iran Focus: Tehran, May 10 – Iran’s navy has test-fired a domestically built anti-submarine torpedo over the weekend as part of war games taking place in the Gulf.
Iraq’s election last month could produce a pro-Iran alliance
The Scotsman: While Scots have been engrossed in our own General Election drama, an even more titanic power struggle has been taking place 3,000 miles away – one that could affect all our lives for the worse.
Getting to know Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
Iran Focus: The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps constitutes the backbone of clerical rule in Iran and is controlled directly by supreme leader Ali Khamenei. It plays a central role in all security, intelligence and military matters and its top brass occupy numerous government posts. It has also turned into a major financial conglomerate, controlling large portions of Iran’s economy, especially in the oil and gas industries. As a result, most trade and oil contracts signed by Iran necessarily involve the IRGC.
Iran Focus will be publishing a 2-part review of the IRGC in our Intelligence Report on Tuesday and Wednesday. Journalists seeking advance copies of the full report should contact our editorial team.
Iran hangs 5 Kurdish activists, including woman
Iran Focus: Tehran, May 09 – Five Kurdish activists, including a woman, were hanged on Sunday in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.
Exclusive: Britain gives Iran rare metal for nuclear testing
Iran Focus: London, May 09 – The British government sanctioned the transfer of a “dual-use” substance to Iran, which then used the rare metal in nuclear weapons research, Iran Focus has learnt.
Maliki’s actions, and Obama’s inaction, threaten an Iraq democracy
Los Angeles Times: Unless the U.S. does more to address the Iraqi prime minister’s postelection moves, billions of dollars and thousands of lives could be for naught.
Iran bans dissident clerics’ writings at Book Fair
Iran Focus: Tehran, May 08 – From the Grapevine … Authorities have removed books written by two senior dissident ayatollahs at the Tehran International Book Fair.
