Sistani opposes Iraq-US security deal

Iraq’s most senior cleric voices opposition to a proposed security deal with the US, saying such a deal would threaten Iraq’s sovereignty.

In a meeting with Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq Al-Rubaie on Tuesday, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani expressed his concerns over the security deal by calling it an excuse that will justify the presence of US forces in Iraq.

Ayatollah Sistani had earlier noted that any long-term pact with the US should observe four key terms: safeguarding Iraqis’ interests, national sovereignty, national consensus, and parliament approval.

On Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki suggested a timetable for the departure of US forces from Iraq.

However, Washington played down calls for a firm withdrawal deadline, saying any pullout will be based on the conditions on the ground.

“We’re looking at conditions, not calendars here,” State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said on Tuesday.

Baghdad and Washington are negotiating a treaty that would allow the American troops to stay in Iraq after their mandate under the UN expires in December 2008.

The controversial security deal has faced fierce opposition from Iraqi religious and political figures who believe the deal would turn the country into a US colony.

MMS/PA

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US braces for closure of oil passage

The US Navy says it is carrying out a maneuver in the Persian Gulf to master the guarding of maritime oil and gas infrastructures.

“The aim of Exercise Stake Net is to practice the tactics and procedures of protecting maritime infrastructure, such as gas and oil installations,” said Commodore Peter Hudson in a US Fifth Fleet statement released Monday.

“Stake Net seeks to help ensure a lawful maritime order as well as improve relationships between regional partners,” reads the statement.

Two American warships as well as a Bahraini and a British vessel are partaking in the exercise, Reuters reported.

The statement comes days after the US Naval Forces Central Command said that the Pentagon is determined to keep the Strait of Hormuz open in case a war breaks out with Iran.

Washington and Tel Aviv accuse Iran of running a nuclear military program. Israel has threatened Tehran that it would use force in case the Islamic Republic continues nuclear enrichment.

According to New York Times sources in the Pentagon, Israel might have staged a military maneuver in early June to prepare for a unilateral air strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

Tehran insists its nuclear program is directed at electricity generation and is in line with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iran’s army chief, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, warned on Saturday that if a military action is taken against the country, Tehran would not hesitate to take all crucial measures, one of which is to close the strategic oil passage.

The strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and Oman, is an essential conduit for energy supplies. As much as 40 percent of the world’s sea-transited crude oil passes through the waterway.

MD/AA

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Israel to shut down Hamas charities

Israelis are to step up operations against civilian infrastructure belonging to Hamas in West Bank in breach of a truce already agreed on.

According to Ha’aretz, Israeli forces will soon shut down a large number of Hamas-affiliated charities, confiscate their property, and search computers and documents that detail their activity.

The forces have been carrying out similar raids in the al-Khalil, Qalqilyah and Ramallah areas since the beginning of the year, but the operations will now be expanded to additional parts of the West Bank.

Israeli authorities including prime minister Ehud Olmert and war minister Ehud Barak have approved the plan to target Hamas civilian infrastructure.

Hamas-affiliated institutions that were targeted so far include schools, health centers, charities, and even soup kitchens and orphanages. Dozens of associations were shut down and the food confiscated.

An Egypt mediated truce between Israel and Gaza fighters came into effect on June 19, under which Israel promised to stop attacks on Gaza and ease the blockade in exchange for an end to the retaliatory homemade rocket attacks on Israelis.

But Palestinians say the Israeli regime has broken the Gaza truce more than 28 times since it went into force two weeks ago.

MSH/BGH

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Russia: Waging war on Iran, catastrophic

Russia’s Foreign Ministry says the use of force on Iran over its nuclear program would have a ‘catastrophic’ outcome in the Middle East.

A Russian Foreign Ministry official speaking on condition of anonymity said the Islamic Republic’s attitude is a ‘positive signal’ as Iranian officials are ‘ready to look seriously at proposals’ presented by the group of six regarding the country’s nuclear issue.

The official went on to warn of the regional repercussions of a military strike on Iran.

“All this is very dangerous. If force is used it will be catastrophic for the whole Middle East,” he told journalists on Wednesday.

The comments by the Russian official came amid recent reports revealing that the Israeli air force had conducted in early June a long-range military drill in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

In response to the reports, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari said Israel was within ‘the range of Iran’s missiles’, warning that Tehran would use all possible means to repel any attack on its soil.

CS/HGH
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Iran: Attacking our N-sites means war

The top Islamic Revolution Guards Corps commander warns that any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would lead to the outbreak of war.

“Any action against Iran will be interpreted as the start of a war,” Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari told reporters Thursday.

He made the remarks when asked about increasing rumors of a potential US or Israeli attack on Iran, IRNA reported.

The IRGC commander warned that Iran’s response to any act of aggression would make the invaders ‘regret’ their decision.

Washington has never ruled out the possibility of resorting to the use of force against Iran over its nuclear program and reports suggest that the Israeli regime is preparing for a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

This is while Washington and Tel Aviv, which accuse Tehran of seeking a military nuclear program, claim they favor a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

Refusing to give up its nuclear drive, Iran insists as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the country is entitled to a civilian nuclear program.

In its most recent report, the UN nuclear watchdog conceded that there is no link between the use of nuclear material and the ‘alleged studies’ of weaponization in Iran’s nuclear facilities.

MD/HGH

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Hersh reveals covert US ops in Iran

The New Yorker magazine says Washington has escalated covert operations against Iran in a bid to destabilize the country’s leadership.

In a report published in the online version of The New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed that US Congressional leaders quietly agreed late last year to President Bush’s funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against the Islamic Republic.

The article centers on a highly classified Presidential Finding which, by US law, must be made known to Senate leaders, the Democratic and Republican House and to ranking members of the intelligence committees.

“The Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying.

The finding also focused on working with the country’s opposition groups and funneling money.

The article cites current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources as saying that $400 million was approved by congressional leaders for clandestine operations against Iran.

US Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross border operations from southern and southeastern Iraq since last year, the article said.

These have included seizing members of Iran’s Qods force — an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — and taking them to Iraq for interrogation.

The operations also involved the pursuit, capture or killing of ‘high-value targets’ in the so-called war on terrorism, according to the article.

However, the article cited current and former officials as saying that the scale and scope of the covert operations inside Iran, including forces from the Central Intelligence Agency, have now been significantly expanded.

Many of these activities were not specified in the Presidential Finding and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature, the article said.

According to former CIA officer, Robert Baer, the Jundullah terrorist group is among the outfits inside Iran benefiting from US support.

Jundullah, which operates in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province and Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, has carried out a number of attacks against Iranian civilians as well as high-profile government and security officials.

Neither the Democratic leaders in Congress nor the White house and the CIA would comment on the finding, the article said.

MT/MR/GM

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Anticipated Hezbollah,Israel Swap Deal Under Spotlight

Two contradicting views have been floating recently between Lebanon and occupied Palestine over an anticipated exchange deal between Hezbollah and Israel.
 
There are some who believe that a swap deal will take place before the end of this month, while others don’t rule out such deal, but believe that it will not be implemented in the near future.  
 
“The prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah will not take place in the next few days”, the Israeli Defense Ministry official said Wednesday. “In any case, such an exchange will not take place until the cabinet meets to approve the release of Samir Kintar, whose freedom still depends on a 2004 cabinet decision to release him only in exchange for information on missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad”.
 
The schedule for the swap is still unclear, though it may possibly come next week, and no date has been set. It is also not clear whether such a swap would take place at the Naqura border crossing, or whether, as in previous exchanges, it would be carried out in Germany, with two airplanes taking off at the same time, one from Tel Aviv and the other from Beirut, on their way to a German military airport.
 
Israel has stated that it will release four Hezbollah fighters who were taken captive during the July 2006 War, and another eight martyrs’ bodies.
Nevertheless, Israel may release a few dozen Palestinian prisoners at a later date. Ofer Dekel, the prime minister’s representative for negotiations with Hezbollah, returned on Wednesday from a private vacation in Paris, though he also dealt with the exchange talks there. He may also have met with the UN mediator involved in the talks, German Gerhard Konrad.
 
Claims roamed on Wednesday that Israel had already started exhuming the bodies of the Lebanese to be returned as part of the deal. Dekel made it clear to the two families of the captured soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser Dekel, at a meeting in his Tel Aviv office that he had not received any new information. He explained that it is likely that only during the actual swap will they find out whether the two are dead or alive. He informed the families of the possible schedule for the deal.
 
Goldwasser’s father, Shlomo, told Haaretz that a dramatic step over the weekend had been ruled out. The families confirmed reports of the meeting, but refused to reveal details, describing the meeting as a short update.
 
On the other hand, an Israeli security source confirmed few days ago that a “swap deal is expected to take place in the near future, possibly even by late next week”. Lebanese media referred to a number of possible dates for an exchange, with Friday June 20 as the earliest, and Wednesday June 25 being the latest.
 
An Israeli senior political source told Haaretz earlier that Israel is still waiting for a final response from Hezbollah and “nothing is final yet.”
 
Sources in the Prime Minister’s Bureau said that the reports published by the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, suggesting a prisoner exchange deal is expected as early as next week, were “inaccurate,” adding it is unlikely the deal will be finalized in such a short time.
 
As for Ron Arad, the missing Israeli air force navigator: Eliad Shraga, head of the Born Free organization, told Israeli daily Ynet that “every possible mistake has been made. Hezbollah has beaten Israel big-time. They’ve been able to get every last one of our bargaining chips, kidnap more soldiers and now we have nothing left. Promises must be kept. We had to give (Mustafa) Dirani and (Abdel Karim) Obeid in the last prisoner swap – they were the best bargaining chips we had on Ron’s case. To make this wrong a little more right, they told us the deal would have a second stage – information about Ron in exchange for Kintar. It’s been four year. Kintar is going home and we still have no new information about Ron.”
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Ahmadinejad to OPEC: Dump weak dollar

Iran urges the OPEC member states again to convert their cash reserves into a basket of currencies rather than the tumbling US dollar.

Speaking at a ceremony to open the 29th ministerial meeting of the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his proposal made about six months ago in a rare summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’s heads of states.

“The fall in the value of US dollar is one of the pressing problems of the world today,” warned the Iranian president at the conference in Isfahan on Tuesday.

He further expressed concern over the adverse effect of the dollar depreciation on the international community, especially energy exporting countries through increasing the price of commodities like wheat, rice and oilseeds.

Ahmadinejad said he warned six months ago in the summit conference in Riyadh that there were many indications pointing to continued fall in the value of the greenback.

“And we see that this continues to happen and the resources and wealth of OPEC member countries have been hugely damaged.

“I again repeat my previous proposal; we should have a basket of different international hard currencies as the basis or the member countries should come up and produce a new hard currency for petroleum contracts,” he stressed.

“They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper,” Ahmadinejad said earlier after the close of the summit in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

The comments by the Iranian president gained backing from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as he said at the same event, “The empire of the dollar has to end.”

On the soaring oil prices, the Iranian president said, “At a time when the growth of consumption is lower than the growth of production and the market is full of oil, prices are rising and this trend is completely fake and imposed.”

“As you know the decrease in the dollar’s value and the increase in energy prices are two sides of the same coin which are being introduced as factors behind the recent instability,” Ahmadinejad added.

MK/GM

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Congressman slams US’s Iran policies

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison has criticized the policies of the US President George W. Bush in dealing with Iranian issues.

George W. Bush has adopted wrong policies on Iran–a country that plays an important role in the Middle East and the world, Ellison said.

Calling the preconditions for talks with Iran irrational, the Congressman said the Bush administration is not able to take practical steps to resolve the problems between the two countries and added that the only option is to wait for the next US president.

Ellison pointed out that he always votes “nay” to sanctions against Iran in the US Congress. He maintains that the sanctions are fruitless and only worsen the situation.

Going further, he condemned Bush’s policies on Iraq. Ellison emphasized that the only way to resolve the crisis in Iraq is to withdraw US forces from the war-torn country and ask Islamic countries, especially Iran, to help reconstruct the country.

Ellison was also critical of the US and Western mass media, which generally offer a prejudgmental image of Iran and a negative view of Islam.

HRF/JG/GM

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‘US, Israel two sides of same coin’

Lebanon’s top cleric Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah draws a parallel between the US and Israel in the savage killing of innocent people.

“The US and its protégé, Israel, are two sides of the same coin in their brutal killing of innocent people,” said the prominent Lebanese cleric in his weekly Friday prayer sermon delivered from the Imamayn Hassanayn Mosque in Haret Hreik.

“When US military aircraft bomb innocent Afghan families and kill Pakistani soldiers to warn them nobody better dare stick their necks out against White House policy on its so-called war on terror, it looks very much like its Israeli ally which launches air strikes against residential units in the Gaza Strip,” said the senior cleric.

“Washington sees the world as an area under its dominance and feels no shame in the kidnapping and torture of those opposing its policies in its military bases stationed across the globe,” Fadlallah added.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who voices concern over the ‘captivity’ of Israeli soldiers, expresses no sympathy over the appalling condition of 11,000 Palestinians subject to psychological and physical torture in Israeli prisons, the cleric argued.

Fadlallah sees no difference between Israeli or American prison guards, as the US soldiers have tortured many prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Abu Ghraib, and prisons in Afghanistan.

MK/JG/GM

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