TEHRAN - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed a new air force commander for the Revolutionary Guards on Thursday, state-run Tehran radio said.

Khamenei, who is also commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces, appointed Brigadier-General Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf to the post....

The Revolutionary Guards, formed after the 1979 Islamic revolution from Islamist militias, comprise ground, naval and air force units. Western military experts estimate their strength at about 120,000. The Guards also control hundreds of thousands of paramilitary volunteers known as Basij.

Mojahedin Forces Clash With Revolutionary Guards, Iran Zamin News Agency, October 30

According to a statement by the Press Office of Mojahedin in Paris, on October 28, an intense clash broke between clerics' Revolutionary Guards and Mojahedin combatants in a region southwest of Salehabad, in western province of Ilam. The clash was reported by the Mojahedin's Command Headquarters inside Iran.

U.S. Senator Urges Toughening Iran-Libya Sanction, Dow Jones News, October 30

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato warned Thursday that he is considering amending the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act to cover banking activities for foreign companies found to violate that act.

D'Amato was responding to reports that Goldman Sachs & Co. will underwrite a billion-dollar convertible bond offering by Russia's Gazprom, a natural gas company that last month signed a $2 billion deal to develop Iran's South Pars natural gas field. The deal was also signed by Total S.A. of France and Malaysia's Petronas....

The act originally included a measure to bar violators from access to U.S. financial markets. However, that provision was dropped from the final version under heavy pressure from the U.S. banking industry.

D'Amato has repeatedly said that the administration shouldn't allow Gazprom to offer its convertible bonds in the United States, but the State Department has yet to say whether it will act on this matter.

China Aided Iran Chemical Arms, The Washington Times, October 30

China has finished building a major production plant in Iran for special equipment used in making chemical weapons, according to a classified U.S. intelligence report.

The top-secret document says that Chinese technicians completed work in June on a factory that makes "glass-lined equipment" but that final delivery of some equipment for the facility, along with chemical-weapons materials, was held up temporarily by the Beijing government.

"Glass-lined equipment is essential in the production of chemical warfare agent precursors and is controlled by the Australia Suppliers Group," the report says....

U.S. officials familiar with the report said the factory poses a major threat because it not only bolsters Iran's large-scale chemical-weapons capability, but also presents new dangers that Iran will begin selling the glass-lined equipment to other nations seeking chemical arms.

U.S. intelligence officials say Iran has a stockpile estimated to include up to 2,000 tons of blister, choking and nerve agents. The agents include sarin nerve gas and mustard gas, deployed in aerial bombs, artillery shells, mines, mortars and short-range missile warheads....

The orders were brokered by Iran's Industrial International Movalled Andishe Co., known as Imaco, with the North Chemical Industries Corp., known as Nocinco....

U.S. Warns China on Nuclear Deal, Reuter, October 30

WASHINGTON - The United States said on Thursday that an agreement allowing China to buy U.S.-made nuclear power reactors could be at risk if Beijing failed to meet its pledge to halt nuclear cooperation with Iran.

"The Chinese know that any actions inconsistent with their obligations and assurances to us would jeopardize continued nuclear cooperation with the United States," State Department spokesman James Rubin said....

Clinton based his decision on China's written assurance that it would end all new nuclear cooperation with Iran and quickly phase out two existing projects Washington considers militarily insignificant...

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