Back to Brief on Iran
According to a statement issued by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, mullahs' President Khatami in a meeting on Monday with the Minister of Intelligence and his deputies and advisors, described the ministry's agents as "valuable assets for the country."
He was heaping praise on the notorious criminals who, while working in different repressive organs in the past 19 years, played a direct role in the execution and torture of 120,000 political prisoners and suppression of popular uprisings and demonstrations.
Praising Khomeini in a speech yesterday to a group of the regime's agents in Jamaran, Khomeini's residence, Khatami said demagogically that "freedom without limits causes anarchy in society," and "anarchy... is much more damaging than dictatorship."
On August 23, Khatami also praised Assadollah Lajevardi, Iran's Eichmann, describing him as "a servant of the people." Responsible for murdering tens of thousands of political prisoners, Lajevardi was among key officials carrying out Khomeini's orders to massacre 30,000 political prisoners 10 years ago this month.
Khatami's remarks reaffirm that his slogans about the "rule of law" and "civil society" are absolutely hollow and that when it comes to using the most ruthless suppressive methods against the people and dissidents, leaders of the theocratic regime ruling Iran are in no way different from one another and always prefer "dictatorship" to freedom "which causes anarchy."
Ex-official Arrested in Iran, Knight
Ridder/Pioneer Press, September 9
In a sign of the deep political tensions inside Iran, authorities there jailed Abbas Amir Entezam Tuesday after he sharply criticized moderate President Mohammad Khatami.
Amir Entezam, a former deputy prime minister who was released from prison last year after 17 years, was taken to the notorious Evin Prison in north Tehran after he lambasted Khatami for praising Assadollah Lajeverdi, who was assassinated last month.
Khatami's kind words for a man known as the "Butcher of Tehran'' were too much.
Entezam's arrest underscores a growing unhappiness with the rule of Khatami among his supporters.
Hezbollah Sees Mullahs as Model, Agence
France Presse, September 8
LONDON—The leader of the Shiite Hezbollah militia, which leads the fight to push Israel out of southern Lebanon, on Tuesday said he saw the Iranian government as a model of Islamist administration.
Speaking in an interview with the Financial Times, Hezbollah's leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Iran "presents an example and a model".
Iran Can Complete Shihab-3 Missile Even if Russia Stops Aid, The Jerusalem Post, September 9
Even if the Russians stop providing Teheran with missile technology, the Iranians could still complete the Shihab-3 ballistic missile capable of striking Israel, a senior intelligence officer said yesterday.
Briefing the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the officer said there was no evidence Russia was halting its aid to Iran's program to build the 1,300-kilometer range Shihab-3 missile….
The officer added that a halt in Russian aid now would at best damage future Iranian projects such as the long-range Shihab-4, which has a range of 2,000 kilometers.
The officer's assessment marks the first time the intelligence community has said the Iranians will be able to complete the Shihab-3 project even without further Russian help.
Khatami's Ally Set up Revolutionary Guards' Dungeons,
Iran Zamin News Agency, September 9
In an interview with the daily Kayhan, Revolutionary Guards Corps Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the State Security Force's Counter Intelligence chief, acknowledged that secret detention centers run by the Force were set up several years ago by Mohammad Atrianfar, the current chief editor of Hamshahri, the pro-Khatami daily.
In the early 1990s, Atrianfar was deputy for political and security matters to Abdollah Nouri, then Minister of Interior, and played a key role in crushing popular uprisings in Tehran and other cities at that time.