Iranian rebels pick new leader

opinions-and-news Rigi, Iran's most wanted fugitive, was seized on Tuesday after Iranian warplanes reportedly forced a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan to land in Iran. Iranian state media alleged on Friday that the United States had offered to provide him military aid to battle the Shia Islamic state.  Rigi said in a taped statement, made after he was taken into custody and broadcast on Iran's state-run English-language Press TV, that "they (the Americans) said they would cooperate with us and will  give me military equipment.” Jundullah response Jundallah said in its website posting: "Let the [Iranian] regime know that it will face a movement that is stronger and much more solid than ever before and one whose existence it has not been aware of. "It will see what our believing heroes among our Baluch children can do to the occupiers, the aggressors and the unjust. The falsehood of the senior leaders of the regime will soon be exposed." Jundallah says it is fighting Tehran's Shia government to secure rights for Sunni Baluchis who form a significant population in the eastern Sistan-Baluchestan province. Tehran has long accused the group of being trained and equipped by American and British intelligence services as well as the Pakistanis in a bid to destabilise the government. Washington denies the charges. Iran's most prominent rebel Sunni movement, Jundullah, has named a new leader to replace Abdolmalek Rigi, following his capture by security forces earlier this week. According to the SITE monitoring agency on Sunday, Muhammad Dhahir Baluch was appointed to head "the People's Resistance Movement in Iran".

2010-02-28T13:50:27-07:00

Jundallah said in its website posting: "It will see what our believing heroes among our Baluch children can do to the occupiers, the aggressors and the unjust. The falsehood of the senior leaders of the regime will soon be exposed." 338 true

2010-02-28T13:50:27-07:00

http://english.aljazeera.net/ Iranian rebels pick new leader

2010-03-10T14:37:40-07:00

opinions-and-news <div class="entry-content"> State-run television in Iran showed what it said was a televised confession on Thursday by Abdolmalek Rigi, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/middleeast/24insurgent.html">recently captured</a> leader of Jundallah, a militant group that claims to be defending Sunni Muslims in Iran’s southeast and has killed hundreds of Iranian soldiers and civilians since 2003. According to Press TV, Iran’s state-controlled, English-language broadcaster, Iranian officials said that Mr. Rigi had been detained after his flight from the United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan was ordered to land as it passed through Iranian air space. But Al Jazeera, the satellite TV channel based in Qatar, reported that Mr. Rigi was arrested in Pakistan last week and handed over to Iran. Mr. Rigi’s group says it is fighting on behalf of Sunni Muslims from the Baluchi ethnic group, which is found on both sides of the border between Iran and Pakistan. Jundallah has taken responsibility for a string of bombings in Iran, including one last October that killed 15 members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and 25 civilians. As Scott Lucas, an expert on the Middle East who runs the blog Enduring America, <a href="http://enduringamerica.com/2010/02/26/latest-iran-video-the-rigi-confession-25-february/">noted on Friday</a>, Press TV published <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119481&sectionid=351020101">an English translation of Mr. Rigi’s statement</a> and showed this video of him delivering it in Persian, with an English voice-over: <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="480" height="385" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> <param name="_cx" value="12700" /> <param name="_cy" value="10186" /> <param name="FlashVars" /> <param name="Movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7jPxQMBJ3uk&hl=en_US&fs=1&" /> <param name="Src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7jPxQMBJ3uk&hl=en_US&fs=1&" /> <param name="WMode" value="Window" /> <param name="Play" value="0" /> <param name="Loop" value="-1" /> <param name="Quality" value="High" /> <param name="SAlign" value="LT" /> <param name="Menu" value="-1" /> <param name="Base" /> <param name="AllowScriptAccess" value="always" /> <param name="Scale" value="NoScale" /> <param name="DeviceFont" value="0" /> <param name="EmbedMovie" value="0" /> <param name="BGColor" /> <param name="SWRemote" /> <param name="MovieData" /> <param name="SeamlessTabbing" value="1" /> <param name="Profile" value="0" /> <param name="ProfileAddress" /> <param name="ProfilePort" value="0" /> <param name="AllowNetworking" value="all" /> <param name="AllowFullScreen" value="true" /> </object> Coming after a series of similar televised confessions from political reformers arrested in the wake of Iran’s disputed presidential election last year, it is hard to say how seriously viewers in Iran might take what Mr. Rigi said, but his remarks were striking mainly because of his claim that the Obama administration supported his violent insurgency. (Commenting on the apparently forced confessions of dissidents broadcast after the disputed election, Haleh Esfandiari, an Iranian-American scholar <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/nyregion/23about.html">told my colleague Jim Dwyer</a> last year, “The good thing about Iran is that nobody — I mean nobody in the country — believes these confessions.”) Whoever composed Mr. Rigi’s statement was very careful to make sure that there would be no doubt about the fact that he would tell the Iranian people that contacts between American intelligence and his group had come during the Obama administration. (In 2008, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh">Seymour Hersh reported</a> that a former C.I.A. officer said that the Bush administration had provided support to Jundallah.) The very first words of the statement are: “After Obama was elected, the Americans contacted us and they met me in Pakistan.” The statement is even strangely specific about the timing of the first contact from the new administration. Mr. Rigi said that American intelligence officers promised to provide “military equipment, arms and machine guns” to his fighters “around March 17″ of 2009. That date is significant because, if true, it would mean that President Obama’s administration was offering to arm militants fighting an ethnic insurgency the very same week that the president himself delivered this video greeting to the people of Iran <a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/obama-and-colbert-on-the-persian-new-year/">on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian new year</a>: <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="480" height="295" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> <param name="_cx" value="12700" /> <param name="_cy" value="7805" /> <param name="FlashVars" /> <param name="Movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HY_utC-hrjI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" /> <param name="Src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HY_utC-hrjI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" /> <param name="WMode" value="Window" /> <param name="Play" value="0" /> <param name="Loop" value="-1" /> <param name="Quality" value="High" /> <param name="SAlign" value="LT" /> <param name="Menu" value="-1" /> <param name="Base" /> <param name="AllowScriptAccess" value="always" /> <param name="Scale" value="NoScale" /> <param name="DeviceFont" value="0" /> <param name="EmbedMovie" value="0" /> <param name="BGColor" /> <param name="SWRemote" /> <param name="MovieData" /> <param name="SeamlessTabbing" value="1" /> <param name="Profile" value="0" /> <param name="ProfileAddress" /> <param name="ProfilePort" value="0" /> <param name="AllowNetworking" value="all" /> <param name="AllowFullScreen" value="true" /> </object> Mr. Obama said in his message to the Iranian people and its leaders that “my administration is now committed to diplomacy,” and he spoke of replacing “threats” with “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.” One month after Mr. Obama’s personal attempt to recast the relationship between the United States and Iran, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/04/13/090413fa_fact_anderson?currentPage=all">Jon Lee Anderson reported</a> in The New Yorker: <blockquote> In the Bush years, it was easy for Ahmadinejad to argue that President Bush was not interested in anything but a hostile relationship with Iran. Obama’s message was “a game-changer,” Vali Nasr, an expert on Iran and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said. “Now the U.S. has come out with an extraordinarily different kind of message, one that is warm, and seems sincere about engaging with Iran. So the Iranians now will ask of their government, why aren’t you engaging?” Nasr added, “Obama has cleverly created a debate between the Iranian people and their leaders, and within the leadership itself — and also, because this comes just three months before the elections, made it a campaign issue.” </blockquote> The possibility that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was ill-placed to take Mr. Obama up on his offer of engagement was indeed an issue in the presidential campaign that took place in Iran just after Mr. Obama’s attempt at outreach. Supporters of the leading opposition candidate, Mir-Hussein Moussavi, even carried posters to his rallies that said, in English, that he would deliver “<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mahsasakaki/3607853111/">A New Greeting to the World</a>.” On Tuesday, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61O5UD20100225?type=politicsNews">Reuters reported</a> that after Iran’s intelligence minister claimed that Mr. Rigi had been at an American military base less than 24 hours before his capture, Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said that was “absolutely false” and dismissed them as “nothing more than Iranian propaganda.” Mr. Morrell also said: “Allegations that we played some role in creating or supporting Jundallah is just another false claim in a long list of ridiculous Iranian fabrications.” Reuters <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSHAF336819">reported earlier this week</a> that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/world/asia/05rashid.html">Ahmed Rashid</a>, a Pakistani journalist who was once a member of an insurgent group in Baluchistan himself, told the news agency that Jundallah had “evolved through shifting alliances with various parties, including the Taliban and Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service, who saw the group as a tool against Iran.” Given the fact that the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is known as the Quetta Shura, because it is located in the capital of Pakistan’s Baluchistan region, it is interesting that Mr. Rigi also said that he was in Quetta in his statement. While much of the attention of the Western press has been on militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the province of Baluchistan remains a center for militant groups and more than one insurgency. In an article in The New York Review of Books last October, “<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23113">The Afghanistan Impasse</a>,” Ahmed Rashid wrote that the province (which he calls Balochistan), bordering both Afghanistan and Iran, is only slightly more under the control of Pakistan’s central government than the country’s tribal areas: <blockquote> Much has been made of Pakistan as a potential failed state on the verge of breakup, yet if there is even a remote chance of that happening it will not be because of the Taliban, but because of an underlying crisis that has been studiously ignored by the West—the separatist movement in Balochistan. [...] Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province, comprising 48 percent of its territory and sharing a long border with southern Afghanistan; but it is a land of rugged mountains and deserts, with a population of only 12 million people. Ever since Pakistan’s creation in 1947, the Baloch tribes have been in revolt against what they see as the chauvinism and denial of their rights by the Pakistani army in favor of Punjab, the country’s most populous province, with 86 million people. In five major insurgencies against the army, the Baloch have demanded greater autonomy, royalties for the province’s gas, development funds, and genuine political representation. The fifth insurgency began in 2005 and has intensified because of the brutal repression and hundreds of “disappearances” of Baloch nationalists, for which the army under former President Pervez Musharraf was responsible. [...] The civilian government under President Zardari arranged a cease-fire with the guerrillas last year but failed to follow it up with serious talks, and guerrilla attacks have resumed. Pakistan’s past military rulers have ignored the fact that their country is a multiethnic, multireligious state and the policies of an overtly centralized military do not work. The army’s refusal to acknowledge this led to the loss of East Pakistan—now Bangladesh—in 1971. Tomorrow it could be Balochistan. </blockquote> Last year, my colleague <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/world/asia/12baluchistan.html">Carlotta Gall reported on the tensions in Baluchistan</a>, in an article that also noted “Baluch nationalists and some Pakistani politicians say the Baluch conflict holds the potential to break the country apart.” </div>

2010-02-28T13:38:56-07:00

Haleh Esfandiari: “The good thing about Iran is that nobody — I mean nobody in the country — believes these confessions" 337 true

2010-02-28T13:38:56-07:00

The New York Times News Blog Broadcast May Be Intended to Undercut Support for Obama in Iran

2010-03-09T02:30:14-07:00

19 By ROBERT MACKEY

opinions-and-news <div class="entry_body_text"> Iran is all over the news again. It is not possible to stray away from Iran if your daily routine includes reading newspapers and visiting opinion websites. Iran and controversy have been wedded together since the Islamic revolution in 1979. In recent months, however, Iran has become the center of global attention thanks to the madness of its regime to build a nuclear weapon. While the world's attention is focused towards the time Iran will take to build a nuke or if it will be allowed to do so, another storm is brewing on its eastern front. Sistan & Baluchestan province in Iran has become a hotbed of insurgency and counterinsurgency efforts. The Iranian regime, with its iron-fist and often brutal suppression of the Baloch people, has ensured a superficial calm in the region. Underneath this calm, there is massive unrest and frustration. Balochs have been denied their rights even before the revolution. The Shah dealt with them aggressively and their sufferings have trebled under the mullahs. While the element of insurgency has remained present in the region, most Balochs remain loyal to Iran. They want to be treated as equal citizens with economic and social development -- and religious freedoms. Ethnic Balochs, which are around <a href="http://www.unpo.org/content/view/7922/153/" target="_hplink">three to five million of Iran's population</a>, are <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/library/info/MDE13/104/2007" target="_hplink">denied of their basic human rights and political representation</a>. As for the language, it is not just the Balochs that are denied the right to education in their native language. Azeris, despite their dominance in the religious and political classes of Iran, have <a href="http://www.rferl.org/Content/Restricting_Irans_Second_Mother_Tongue/1497983.html" target="_hplink">failed to incorporate Azeri language</a> even in the provinces where they are in majority. Persian reins supreme in Iran although the country <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html" target="_hplink">does not have an overwhelming majority</a> of native Persian speakers. Azeris, however, have been assimilated well into Iranian cultural and economic milieu given their religious affinity -- both Persians and Azeris are Shiites. Balochs, Kurd, Baha'i, Zoroastrians, Jews and Arabs do not have this religious affinity and thus are at the receiving end of state-sponsored hatred and discrimination. Iran has <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2010/iran-100223-rferl01.htm" target="_hplink">accused the United States, Israel and United Kingdom of helping the Balochs</a> in their insurgency. It has failed to provide any substantial evidence but since has carried out numerous offensives in the Baluchestan area. It even threatened to attack Pakistani Balochistan if the latter failed to hand over the extremists that it said were hiding in Pakistan. Iran accused Pakistan of hosting Abdul Malik Rigi, head of the militant Jundallah faction. There have been conflicting reports about Rigi's location of arrest with some saying that Pakistan has handed Rigi over to Iran (<a href="http://www.isna.ir/ISNA/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-1497474&Lang=E" target="_hplink">Pakistan has rejected these claims</a>). Rigi will most likely be hanged within a few days or weeks without receiving a fair trial. Iran has a history of 'speedy' trials and dozens of Balochi men have <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/5825208/Iran-hangs-13-members-of-rebel-Sunni-Muslim-group.html" target="_hplink">already been sent to the gallows</a>. Jundallah has embarked on confrontational and rather gory struggle for Balochi rights but Iran is clamping down on the entire Baloch population. It may quell the armed struggle but it cannot continue denying basic human rights to millions of Balochs. These poor people wield no political power and no support from any quarter of Iranian society, including the so-called liberals and that is their real tragedy. It is about time that the international blase towards the plight of Iranian minorities should transform into a deep concern. They cannot help them much as long as the mullah dictatorship is controlling Tehran but they can ensure some safeguards in the future talks or sanctions. It is an issue of human rights and needs to be addressed seriously. </div>  <div style="display: none;"> <div></div> </div>

2010-02-26T12:34:34-07:00

Underneath this calm, there is massive unrest and frustration. Balochs have been denied their rights even before the revolution. The Shah dealt with them aggressively and their sufferings have trebled under the mullahs 335 true

2010-02-26T12:34:34-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ Don't Forget the Plight of Iranian Balochs

2010-03-07T10:09:54-07:00

14 Saad Khan

opinions-and-news Few people outside Iran have heard of Abdul-Malik Rigi. Inside Iran, however, many see the 32-year old Baluch rebel as a mixture of Scarlet Pimpernel and Al Capone. In a few years, he had managed to become a thorn in the side of the emerging military-security regime in Tehran. Rigi has been blamed for the deaths of over 100 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, including several senior commanders, and members of other security organizations of the Khomeinist republic, not to mention dozens of civilians as “collateral damage.” Last Tuesday, however, Rigi’s luck ran out when a Pakistani passenger plane in which he was travelling to an un-named Arab country was forced to land in Iran. Within minutes of the forced landing, Rigi was in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. The incident raises a number of questions. First, how did the Khomeinist authorities learn about Rigi’s presence in the Pakistani aircraft? Everyone knows that Rigi travelled with different passports, using different aliases. One must assume that he would have taken some precaution before boarding a passenger plane. In any case, this was not the first time Rigi was flying out of Pakistan. Last summer he flew to Europe for a four-nation tour. Did the Pakistani authorities inform Tehran of Rigi’s presence in the plane? No one, outside the two governments, could know for sure. Nevertheless, there is a possibility that Islamabad decided to terminate its hospitality towards Rigi by denouncing him to the Iranians. This would be in harmony with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s recent attempts at wooing Tehran. The Pakistani leader’s relations with his principal ally, the United States, have deteriorated in the past few months as the new Obama administration in Washington tried to weaken Zardari’s hold on power by flirting with his opponents. For a while, Washington, supported by some regional allies, tried to build former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif up as a replacement for Zardari. Washington has now abandoned that policy. But Zardari sees the US a fickle friend. Then there is the concern that the Obama administration might suddenly drop Afghanistan as it is dropping Iraq. In that case, Pakistan would need a working relationship with Iran that is likely to emerge as a major player in Afghanistan. Yet another reason for the probable change of Islamabad’s attitude may be a quid pro quo: Iran stops supporting rebels in Pakistani Baluchistan in exchange for Rigi’s capture. It is possible that a deal was made last month during an unprecedented visit by Iran’s Interior Minister, General Muhammad Najjar, to Islamabad. If one does not agree that Islamabad has decided to put relations with Tehran on a different trajectory, one must assume that the Iranians obtained information about Rigi’s movements by bribing Pakistani officials. In that case, Zardari would have to decide whether a security service that could be bought by foreign powers has a place in the democratic system he claims he is building. The second question that Rigi’s arrest raises is the place that armed struggle should have in the fight against an increasingly unpopular regime. The issue has generated much debate in the past few weeks. The regime’s success in containing opposition demonstrations during the first days of this month has prompted supporters of armed struggle to raise their voices. The People’s Mujahedin, an Islamist-leftist group, has criticised the “Green” opposition movement for its “utopian reliance on peaceful protest.” The Party of Kurdish Life (PJAK), the Iranian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has expressed similar views. A number of smaller Maoist groups have gone further by calling for urban guerrilla operations. Iran’s democratic opposition should not listen to such siren songs. Rigi’s arrest shows the limits of armed action and the ultimate failure of a strategy based on violence. Although the Khomeinist regime is a repressive machine, it has not yet succeeded in closing all avenues for expressing dissent. In most cases, armed struggle degenerates into terrorism. And that provides the military-security coalition with a pretext for strengthening its hold on power and urging an even harsher crackdown against the opposition. Often, terrorism and military-security oppression form a couple engaged in a deadly dance. Rigi’s “armed struggle” did more harm than good even to Iran’s Baluch people. His attacks enabled the regime to push aside legitimate Baluch grievances, and portray as “terrorists and foreign agents” all those who demanded a fair deal for an oppressed people. With or without Rigi, the fact remains that Iranian Baluchis are victims of systemic discrimination. Life expectancy in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan is a full ten years lower than the Iranian national average. Illiteracy rate in the Baluchi parts of the province is six times higher than the national average while unemployment hovers around an incredible 40 per cent. The province is granted less than a quarter of one per cent of the public investment, much of it allocated to military projects that generate few jobs for the locals. More than a third of the Baluch work force manages to earn a living thanks to seasonal jobs in other parts of Iran, especially Khorassan. Many more migrate to other countries of the region or to North America. Iranian Baluch are also victims of cultural and religious oppression. The regime spares no effort to wipe out Baluchi, an old member of the Iranic family of languages. More than 80 per cent of Iran’s estimated two million Baluchi citizens are Sunni Muslims and as such victims of religious discrimination by a regime that bases its claim of legitimacy on an extremist version of duodecimal Shiism. Over the past 30 years, all but four of the schools teaching Islamic Sunni theology in Iranian Baluchistan have been shut by the regime. Many Baluch clerics, known as Maulawis, have been expelled from the province and at least two dozens have been murdered in mysterious circumstances. The regime has also seized at least half of Baluchi mosques and appointed Shiite mullahs as Friday prayer leaders in some predominantly Sunni villages and towns. For 30 years, forcing the Baluch to convert to the Khomeinist version of Shiism has been a constant policy of the regime. That campaign has intensified since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president in 2005. Rigi’s “armed struggle” did nothing to rectify the injustice that the Khomeinist regime is doing to the Baluch people. His capture, however, will not hide that injustice. Nor will it change the atmosphere of violence and insecurity that reigns in a large chunk of southeast Iran. The opposition movement must address the fact that, under the Khomeinist regime, Iran’s religious and ethnic minorities are subjected to a double injustice and offer credible guidelines for tackling the problem. Last year, Mehdi Karrubi, one of the key figures of the opposition, briefly flirted with the subject before quickly moving away from it. That is not good enough. Rigi’s capture should provide an opportunity for a more serious debate on the subject.

2010-02-26T12:28:16-07:00

With or without Rigi, the fact remains that Iranian Baluchs are victims of systemic discrimination 334 true

2010-02-26T12:28:16-07:00

Asharq Alawsat The Sufferings of Iran's Minorities

2010-03-10T14:38:06-07:00

16 Amir Taheri

opinions-and-news Tehran official claims head of Jundallah had visited a US military base hours before his arrest Iran trumpeted a significant security success today with the capture of Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of Jundullah, a Sunni insurgent group accused by Tehran of mounting terrorist attacks with the support of the US, Britain and Pakistan. Jundullah (Soldiers of God) has claimed responsibility for bombings that have killed scores of Iranians, including five senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, in recent years. Iranian state TV showed a handcuffed Rigi being escorted by four masked commandos off a small aircraft, but there were conflicting accounts of how and where he was seized. According to one official, Rigi's plane was forced to land by Iranian aircraft while on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan. But other accounts said he had been arrested inside Iran or Pakistan. Al-Jazeera TV reported that he had been handed over by the Pakistan authorities. Tehran presented Rigi's capture as a major coup and a blow to the countries it alleges have been backing Jundullah. "We are warning America and European countries that the intelligence services of the west should stop support for such groups and their terrorist acts," said Iran's intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi. "We have clear documents proving that Rigi was in co-operation with American, Israeli and British intelligence services." Moslehi said Rigi had been in a US military base 24 hours before his arrest and was carrying an Afghan passport supplied by the US. In Washington a US official rejected the claim as "totally bogus". Moslehi also blamed the BBC and the Voice of America for covering Rigi's "achievements". Britain, at odds with Iran over its nuclear programme and many other issues, welcomed the news. "Abdolmalek Rigi is a terrorist responsible for despicable attacks which have killed many innocent Iranians," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "The UK has always condemned such actions. His arrest by the Iranian authorities would be a blow against terrorism, which Britain unreservedly welcomes." Al-Alam TV said Rigi had been detained with three other members of his group. Jundullah operates largely in the south-eastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, where the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet in the "triangle of death". It is home to a large population of Sunni Baluchis and is a hotbed of Sunni insurgency against the Shia regime, as well as of cross-border drug smuggling. On al-Arabiyya TV, an Islamabad-based analyst, Bakr Atyani, described the capture as a "serious blow" to the group. Mohammad Marzieh, prosecutor of Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchestan, said: "Rigi's arrest was made through security measures taken for a long period of time. He is now in Iran and will be handed to security and judicial officials." Tehran has accused Rigi of carrying out several attacks, including a bombing in Pisheen, south-east Iran, that killed 42 people, including five Revolutionary Guard commanders, last October. Jundullah also claimed a May 2009 attack on a Shia mosque in Zahedan that killed more than 20 people and wounded 50. Iran hanged 13 members of the group last July and another one in November.It was reported in 2007 that the US Congress had agreed to a request by George Bush for $400m covert funding to Iranian groups including Jundullah. Washington denies it supports terrorism.

2010-02-23T17:27:10-07:00

Al-Jazeera TV reported that he had been handed over by the Pakistan authorities 333 true

2010-02-23T17:27:10-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk Iran captures Sunni insurgent leader Abdolmalek Rigi

2010-03-10T23:25:40-07:00

24 Ian Black, Middle East editor

opinions-and-news BAGHDAD — A major Sunni bloc on Saturday withdrew from Iraq's March 7 general election in protest against Iranian interference it said was damaging the ballot and urged other parties to join the boycott. The National Dialogue Front led by Saleh al-Mutlak, a leading Sunni MP banned from the election on account of links to the Baath Party of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, confirmed its candidates would not contest the poll. A party spokesman said the decision was taken following remarks made by General Ray Odierno, the top US army officer in Iraq, who alleged that the committee which barred Mutlak from standing was controlled by Iran. "The National Dialogue Front cannot continue in a political process run by a foreign agenda," the group's spokesman Haider al-Mullah told reporters in Baghdad. "The National Dialogue Front therefore announces its stance is to boycott the forthcoming election and the invitation is open to other political entities to take the same stance." Mutlak was the main Sunni figure in former Shiite premier Iyad Allawi's secular Iraqiya list, and his withdrawal is a setback for Allawi's bid to unseat serving Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and hopes for reconciliation. However, electoral authorities told AFP the boycott was largely symbolic and had no official status because the deadline for parties to withdraw has passed and ballot papers have already been printed. Mutlak -- whose bloc has nine MPs in the present 275-seat parliament -- was among hundreds of election candidates barred from the vote by the country's Justice and Accountability Committee. Mutlak and other Sunni leaders have repeatedly claimed that the JAC is controlled by Iran and is being used to oust them from politics and allow the selection of proxy candidates that Tehran can use to effectively govern Iraq. The JAC is run by former Shiite deputy prime minister Ahmed Chalabi and his ally Ali al-Allami, who spent a year in a US-run jail in Iraq, who are both seen as close to the Iranian government. While in Washington on Tuesday, General Odierno said Chalabi and Allami had ties to Tehran's Quds force and "clearly are influenced by Iran." "We have direct intelligence that tells us that," the commander told an audience at the Institute for the Study of War. Odierno said Chalabi and Allami had several meetings in Iran with a close aide to the commander of the Quds, the covert operations arm of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards. "And we believe they're absolutely involved in influencing the outcome of the election. And it's concerning that they've been able to do that over time," Odierno said, apparently referring to the Tehran government. His comments were backed by US ambassador to Baghdad Christopher Hill. The dispute over who can stand in the March 7 election has raised sectarian tensions and alarmed the United States, which views the polls as a crucial precursor to a complete military withdrawal by the end of 2011. The vote is seen as a test of reconciliation efforts between the population's Sunni minority, dominant under Saddam, and the Shiite majority now represented by Maliki's government. Mutlak's decision is a u-turn on what he said Monday, when he told tribal chiefs in Baghdad that Sunnis had "tasted the bitterness of a boycott" in the 2005 parliamentary ballot and "it was not the solution" this time round. Election organisers said his boycott was officially invalid. "We did not receive any request from the party to withdraw, so, for us, they (the National Dialogue Front) are still part of the Iraqiya list," said Hamdiya al-Husseini, a senior official with the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC). Allawi's Iraqiya list appears to remain the favoured choice among voters in the Sunni Arab strongholds of Anbar, Nineveh and Salaheddin, analysts have told AFP. Voters on Saturday appeared unmoved by the withdrawal of Mutlak's party and indicated it would not stop them voting for Allawi. "I will vote for Iraqiya whether Mutlak's list participates or not," said Haider Ali Mahmud, a 41-year-old mechanic in Samarra, in Salaheddin.

2010-02-21T14:09:36-07:00

Mutlak and other Sunni leaders have repeatedly claimed that the JAC is controlled by Iran and is being used to oust them from politics and allow the selection of proxy candidates that Tehran can use to effectively govern Iraq 331 true

2010-02-21T14:09:36-07:00

AFP Sunni bloc boycotts Iraq vote citing Iran interference

2010-03-10T22:54:17-07:00

20 Salam Faraj (AFP)

opinions-and-news <div class="KonaBody"> DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- The Sunni insurgent group Jundallah called on its supporters to take up arms against Iran following failed peace negotiations with Tehran, al-Arabiya reports. Jundallah in a statement received by al-Arabiya said rare talks with the government of Iran broke down because Tehran held off on responding to demands from the group. "The movement raised basic, legitimate, logical and reasonable demands in order to solve problems in the (Baluchistan) region and continued to negotiate in good faith and committed throughout this period to an undeclared truce and to the halt of all military operations," the group said in its statement. The Pakistan-based Jundallah said it carried out a June attack at the Ali Ibn Abi Taleb mosque in Sistan-Baluchistan province that killed as many as 21 people and wounded more than 70 others. Pakistani ties with Iran soured in the wake of an Oct. 19 bombing at a conference between Shiite and Sunni groups in southeastern Iran. Jundallah claimed responsibility for the attack that killed several senior commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. The militant group called on minority ethnic groups to join their fight against the Iranian government but said it would give Tehran a "last opportunity" to respond before it resumed its militant campaign. </div>

2010-02-21T13:47:42-07:00

The militant group called on minority ethnic groups to join their fight against the Iranian government 330 true

2010-02-21T13:47:42-07:00

United Press International Jundallah warns of attacks against Iran

2010-03-10T14:38:18-07:00

opinions-and-news Military still 'calling the shots' in political and judicial process, report reveals Pakistan's powerful military has actively worked to undermine efforts by the elected government to improve human rights in the country, according to a new report. It also tried to destabilise the elected government, and force out President Asif Ali Zardari.   In a damning critique of the military establishment, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the armed forces had opposed efforts to end its intervention in the political and judicial process. It had also resisted attempts to locate some of the scores of people who were "disappeared" in the restive province of Baluchistan during the years of General Pervez Musharraf's rule. "The Pakistani military continues to subvert the political and judicial systems in Pakistan," said Ali Dayan Hasan of HRW. "After eight years of disastrous military rule and in spite of the election of a civilian government, the army appears determined to continue calling the shots in order to ensure that it can continue to perpetrate abuses with impunity," he said. The travails of Baluchistan represent one of Pakistan's darker but seldom-told narratives. General Musharraf's regime responded to a long-active independence movement with swift brutality. A veteran leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti, was assassinated and untold numbers of suspected activists were either jailed without process or else disappeared. Considered an ally in America's "war on terror", General Musharraf's actions were overlooked or even helped by the West. Following the election of a civilian government in the spring of 2008 headed by Mr Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the authorities vowed to end the violence, withdraw troops and release political prisoners. Yet that has not happened. Worse, last April three Baluch leaders were murdered, allegedly by the military-controlled security forces, delivering a damaging blow to the relationship between Mr Zardari's government and the local community. Mr Hasan said the military continued to hold sway over the province, muzzling local media and undermining reconciliation. "The military needs to recognise that it no longer runs the show," he added. The report also highlighted how the military worked against Mr Zardari last autumn over a US aid bill, "in an apparent attempt to... force the resignation" of President Zardari. The Kerry-Lugar bill offered $7.5bn, but was opposed by the Pakistani military because of conditions the US attached, in particular that it was satisfied that the armed forces were fighting terrorism and not "subverting the political or judicial processes of Pakistan". Mr Zardari said no one who supported democracy could oppose the objectives of the conditions attached to the aid. Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a Lahore-based analyst, said Pakistan's military – which has directly ruled the country for half its existence – had become more subtle in the way it intervened. For instance, it had been building a relationship with the Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani as a way of trying to isolate the President. "I think now they are working to counter Mr Zardari, to create checks and balances," he said. The publication of the report came as the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates made his first visit to Pakistan since 2007, amid pressure from Washington for Pakistan to attack militants based in North Waziristan and blamed for cross-border raids on Western targets inside Afghanistan. Yesterday, a military spokesman said there would be no new offensives for at least six months. Some of the Taliban leaders operating in the territory are alleged to have close ties to ISI, Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency.

2010-01-24T15:15:46-07:00

The travails of Baluchistan represent one of Pakistan's darker but seldom-told narratives. General Musharraf's regime responded to a long-active independence movement with swift brutality 322 true

2010-01-24T15:15:46-07:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/ Pakistan armed forces 'tried to oust President'

2010-03-10T01:17:27-07:00

59 Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent

opinions-and-news The secret, if it ever was, is eventually out that there is in fact an anti-Baloch clique with its own agenda and powerful enough to threaten even the highest office of the land. No, this not the surmise of a pro-Baloch columnist but comes direct from the horse’s mouth, well at least a horse lover’s mouth: yes, the president himself. At the ground breaking ceremony of the Winder Dam project he said that espousal of the rights of Balochistan by him had angered “certain elements” and they were now out to remove him; some journalists termed these elements as the ‘anti Baloch clique’. He said, “The Aghaz-e-Huqooq-i-Balochistan package is the right of the people of Balochistan and we have to implement it. But they do not want this to happen. Therefore, they want to remove me.” So now we know that this powerful clique does not even tolerate an ineffective and largely useless Balochistan package. The president, as constrained and curbed as his authority and movement may be, still has the entire resources of the state at his disposal to learn and be informed about matters that common citizens or for that matter out-of-power politicians do not even get a whiff of. With his wherewithal he certainly knows that this anti-Baloch clique has the clout to threaten his tenure if he is overtly pro-Baloch or even seems to be patronising them. This clique definitely has to be anti-democratic and paranoid as who else would remove an elected head of state simply for perceived misdeeds; because certainly the president has done nothing to curb the injustices against the Baloch or redress their grievances in the nearly two years that his party has been in power. Empty apologies do nothing to heal grievous wounds. This clique certainly has not come into being all of a sudden or only after Zardari became the president. It must have existed long before and must be having a few achievements to its credit. It must also have the power to even threaten someone who has the entire — maybe minus that certain clique — state machinery at his disposal. Presumably this ‘clique’ is as powerful as the rest of the state apparatus. Little wonder that people keep disappearing without a trace and some turning up dead as the Baloch leaders did in Turbat. Let us dispassionately examine the evidence if there really exists an anti-Baloch clique or it is just a figment of the imagination of a beleaguered president. To do this we will have to go way back to 1947. In June 1947, the British government announced plans for the partition of India. The fate of British Afghanistan and the Baloch Tribal Areas, which included the Marri-Bugti, Khetran and Baloch Tribal Areas of Dera Ghazi Khan, was to be decided by a referendum. It was decided to hold a jirga on June 30th but was deviously held on the 29th without informing all the members. With this referendum as its basis, British Balochistan, including the leased and tribal areas that were constitutionally part of the Khanate were quite illegally acceded to Pakistan on August 15, 1947. It is interesting to note that after partition the chiefs of Derajat were given the choice to relinquish their privileges by joining Balochistan or retain them by joining Punjab. This British Administered Baloch area of DG Khan was misappropriated by Punjab in 1950. The Tumandars signed the agreement under threat of forsaking their large land holdings if they did not opt for Punjab. A monument to that injustice stands at Fort Munro, 6,470 feet above sea level. On August 4, 1947, a tripartite agreement was signed between Pakistan, the British and Balochistan, called The Standstill Agreement, in which the sovereign status of Balochistan was accepted. The Khan declared Balochistan independent on August 11, 1947, three days before the independence of Pakistan. The Khan affirmed his intention to build Balochistan as a prosperous sovereign country in which the Baloch could retain their identity, live in accordance with their traditions and establish relations through treaties of friendship with the neighbouring states of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan as well as with India and the outside world. Soon after independence, elections were held to the Diwan, Balochistan’s bi-cameral legislature, and a period of tranquillity and peace was ensured in the country. The Assembly held sessions in September and December 1947 and most favoured alliance and not accession with Pakistan. On December 14, 1947, Ghaus Baksh Bizenjo made a landmark speech and it is still considered as a valid argument for the independence of Balochistan. He said, “We have a distinct civilisation and a separate culture like that of Iran and Afghanistan. We are Muslims but it is not necessary that by virtue of being Muslims we should lose our freedom and merge with others. If the mere fact that we are Muslims requires us to join Pakistan, then Afghanistan and Iran, both Muslim countries, should also amalgamate with Pakistan. “We were never a part of India before the British rule. Pakistan’s unpleasant and loathsome desire that our national homeland, Balochistan should merge with it is impossible to consider. We are ready to have friendship with that country on the basis of sovereign equality but by no means ready to merge with Pakistan. We can survive without Pakistan. But the question is, what would Pakistan be without us? “I do not propose to create hurdles for the newly created Pakistan in the matters of defence and external communication. But we want an honourable relationship, not a humiliating one. If Pakistan wants to treat us as a sovereign people, we are ready to extend the hand of friendship and cooperation. If Pakistan does not agree to do so, flying in the face of democratic principles, such an attitude will be totally unacceptable to us, and if we are forced to accept this fate then every Baloch son will sacrifice his life in defence of his national freedom.” His speech moved the Baloch and strengthened their desire for independence and their will to maintain their new-found independence. But in the meantime Pakistan began to pressurise the newly independent Kalat state to join Pakistan and an uneasy calm appeared in relations between Kalat and Pakistan. Talks between Pakistan and Kalat dragged on. Pakistan continued to harass the Khan and Baloch state machinery on various pretexts and was engaged in conspiracies and underhand tactics to compel the Khan to join Pakistan. When Pakistan was convinced that the Khan would not accede, separate instruments of accession by the states of Lasbela and Kharan, which were feudatories of the Khan, and of Makran, which was never more than a district of the state of Kalat, were announced on March 18. Accession of Makran, Kharan and Lasbela robbed Kalat of more than half its territory and its access to the sea. The following day the Khan of Kalat issued a statement refusing to believe that Pakistan as a champion of Muslim rights in the world would infringe upon the rights of small Muslim neighbours, pointing out that Makran as a district of Kalat had no separate status and that the foreign policy of Lasbela and Kharan was placed under Kalat by the Standstill Agreement. On March 26, 1948, the Pakistan Army was ordered to move into the Baloch coastal region of Pasni, Jiwani and Turbat. This was the first act of aggression prior to the march on Kalat by a Pakistani military detachment on April 1, 1948. The Khan capitulated on March 27 after the army moved into the coastal region and it was announced in Karachi that the Khan of Kalat has agreed to merge his state with Pakistan. Under the Constitution of Kalat, the Khan was not authorised to take such a basic decision. The Balochistan Assembly had already rejected any suggestion of forfeiting the independence of Balochistan on any pretext. The sovereign Baloch state after British withdrawal from India lasted only 227 days. The evidence certainly leads one to conclude that this clique has had the influence and power to thwart the Baloch people’s rightful struggle to be independent as they were for 227 days after partition and use their resources without even partly sharing with them. (To be continued) Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com

2010-01-17T12:00:57-07:00

The Khan affirmed his intention to build Balochistan as a prosperous sovereign country in which the Baloch could retain their identity and live in accordance with their traditions and establish relations through treaties of friendship with neighbouring states 320 true

2010-01-17T12:00:57-07:00

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/ Analysis: Anti-Baloch clique?

2010-03-10T09:39:06-07:00

73 Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

opinions-and-news Asharq Al-Awsat - Sheikh Abdol Hamid Esmaeel Zehi is a leading religious figure amongst Iran's Sunni community. He is the chairman of Dar al Uloom University in Zahedan and leads the Friday prayer at the Sunni Makki Mosque in Zahedan. In this interview, he talks to Asharq Al-Awsat about Iran’s Sunni community and its relationship with the Iranian regime. This is the first interview Sheikh Abdol Hamid has given in months due to the strict supervision that all Iranian Sunnis are subjected to. He has reservations about giving interviews to newspapers and media representatives over the phone. This interview was conducted via email. His brother was imprisoned for four months for publishing photos of attacks on a Sunni school last year in the Baluchestan province.   Q) What is the population of Sunnis in Iran and where do most of them live?   A) They live along most of Iran’s borders. The [Sunni] residents who live on the eastern, south-eastern and north-eastern borders belong to the Hanafi school of thought. The residents along the north and south western borders belong to the Shafey school of thought whilst most Sunnis in Al Ahwaz are Hanbalis. Due to where they are situated geographically, the population there is made up of diverse communities such as the Baloch people, the Kurds, the Turkmen, the Persians, Arabs and the Talysh. Each of these communities has its own language, but the official language of the state is Persian. The Sunnis constitute at least a quarter or a fifth of the country’s population, estimated at more than 15 million out of Iran's entire population of 70 million. The Sunnis are mainly based in the city of Zahedan, the capital city of the Sistan province. Baluchestan is home to Makki Mosque, Iran’s biggest Sunni mosque, and Darul Uloom University, the country’s biggest Sunni centre of education. The university comprises of a large number of students from all over Iran and from neighbouring countries. In these two religious centres, the important political and religious issues concerning Sunnis are being dealt with and whenever the Sunnis encounter problems or pressure, complaints would be filed there.   Q) Are there any official centres for Sunnis? A) Unfortunately, there is no official centre or institute in Tehran to follow matters that concern Sunnis with the exception of the Sunni representatives in the Shoura Council, who number nearly 20 out of 280 representatives. Without doubt, this is a very small number bearing in mind the number of the Sunni population. Actually there should be over 40 representatives. The reason the number of Sunni representatives is so little is that the Guardian Council of the Constitution often rejects most Sunni candidates even if they are experienced and competent.   Q) How would you describe the situation of Sunni Muslims in Iran at present? A) Before the revolution, the royal secular regime was concerned only with maintaining power so it did not see any difference between the Sunnis and the Shia, and the doctrine [one followed] did not play a part in employment or appointment to state positions. As a result, the Sunnis and the Shia equally used to assume government posts, and the Sunnis used to hold senior posts in the police forces as well as in the army. Therefore, the level of concern and confusion about discrimination and inequality was much lower and could hardly be felt.   However, after the revolution, the Shia doctrine dominated and the Shia ideologists took control in the country and were concerned only about the doctrine, therefore, the Sunnis had to confront different problems.   It is worth mentioning that with regards to some construction and development issues in the past thirty years, the new regime provided services to the citizens equally and in all places, and the Sunnis are not worried about these particular issues. The main issue that concerns the Sunnis now is the discrimination in the field of employment within official and major posts. The Constitution stipulated that the official [state] doctrine is Twelver Shia Jaafari Islam and that the President of the Republic must be a Shia. It is for this reason that the Sunnis cannot run for presidency in the elections. Though the constitution does not forbid the appointment of Sunnis to government positions, not one Sunni has ever been appointed vice president, minister, deputy minister, ambassador or governor. What is even stranger is that they hardly participate in the administration of governorates with Sunni majorities. Therefore, there is clearly sectarianism when it comes to choosing Sunnis for state positions. Even if Sunnis are qualified for the presidential post, or ministerial or government positions, they are deprived of this because of their adherence to their doctrine and ideological opinions.   As for jobs in the police force, the Sunnis were appointed for a short period only following the revolution, and the Sunnis now have no presence in the army. Because of this discrimination, the Sunnis are feeling concerned, tense and isolated.   The second problem faced by the Sunnis concerns doctrinal freedom. Though the constitution stipulates freedom for the followers of all doctrines, there are bodies and institutions that are putting pressure on the Sunnis with regards to educational and doctrinal issues. Consequently, Sunni activists are experiencing serious problems with regards to educational issues in some Sunni areas and Sunni children in some areas are being educated secretly.   The Sunnis do not have one mosque in Tehran, Isfahan, Kerman, Yazd or any other cities with Shia majorities. Furthermore, our Sunni brothers in Tehran were prevented from performing the Friday or the Eid prayers at the school affiliated to the Pakistani embassy recently, and now they if they want to pray they can only do so in some houses. Likewise, in other big cities where there are only a few Sunnis, they take part in the Friday and the Eid prayers in houses, and they are facing real problems in this regard. The Sunnis in cities with Shia majorities are the least fortunate of all Sunnis in terms of ideological issues. They face real problems in building mosques, educating their children and in other religious issues. The complaints filed to state officials are not responded to and are not solved. A resolution was issued recently by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution forcing the Sunnis to delegate authority over Sunni religious schools and educational centres to the government. In this manner, the government is seeking to take control of Sunni mosques and schools and the Sunnis consider this a disaster and are now uniting against this resolution and objecting the executive measures of this resolution. The state’s success in implementing this resolution would mean depriving the Sunnis of doctrinal freedom all over the country.   In brief, the Sunnis in Iran have two major problems: doctrinal freedom, and the lack of equality in assuming government and administrative posts. For their part, the Sunnis never relinquish their rights, they monitor [their rights] through peaceful means, and demand the government acknowledges their legitimate rights and stops depriving them of their rights because of their beliefs.   Q) What about relations with the Iranian government on an official level?   A) The Sunnis have no official relations with the government, except through the Shoura Council representatives. Sometimes there are visits to Shia clerics and Marjas during which we talk to them about the problems the Sunnis are encountering and we exchange opinions regarding issues that concern the Sunnis.   A) What is your position on the continuous controversy between the Reformists and the Conservatives?   Q) The fundamental motive behind the current controversy is the lack of freedoms stipulated by the constitution such as freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of political parties and political components and other legitimate rights. The ongoing controversy is about these issues as well as the validity of the recent elections. What further aggravated the controversy was a set of other social and political issues in the country. If the government does not take the initiative and make amendments and changes to the ruling regime’s structure, the controversy will have consequences that will affect the regime’s foundation. But if it takes initiative and responds to the people's legitimate problems then we can expect reconciliation between the two sides. If the government adopts a broader vision of these issues, problems will be solved and the regime will remain.   Q) Do you receive Arab or Islamic support?   A) As Iranian Sunnis, we are yet to receive any kind of Arab or Islamic support. The claims made by extremist parties that Sunnis receive support from Muslim and Arab countries are all baseless and incorrect.   Q) What are the doctrinal disputes between the Sunnis and the Shia?   A) Igniting doctrinal disputes [between the Sunnis and the Shia] will not benefit Islam and Muslims, as the differences are made up by people who have had the door shut [in their face] and their political ambitions blocked. Due to the fierce international campaign against Islam and Muslims, the essence of Islam has been seriously jeopardized recently therefore it is our duty to avoid doctrinal disputes.   Q) Have the attempts made by some Arab and Iranian circles to settle doctrinal disputes been successful?   A) The conferences held in Iran and in other Islamic countries that we hear a lot about are limited in their activities to applause and mere propaganda and in reality they accomplish no tangible achievements. Evidence of this is that they have never been successful at achieving the goal that they set out to reach i.e. settling disputes. There are still doctrinal disputes that are yet to be settled, and the conferences were of no benefit to the Ummah. They did not bring together the Sunnis and Shia in Iran nor did they solve the problems concerning the Sunnis. It would have been more beneficial to the Ummah if these conferences had been held out of sympathy.   Q) To what extent has the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad influenced society in comparison to his predecessor Mohammed Khatami?   A) Under Khatami, political freedoms, political components and the freedom of expression were more protected and the standard of living of the Iranian people was higher under Khatami.

2010-01-10T15:36:18-07:00

The main issue that concerns the Sunnis now is the discrimination in the field of employment within official and major posts 318 true

2010-01-10T15:36:18-07:00

Asharq Al-Awsat Iranian Sunni Religious Leader Talks to Asharq Al-Awsat

2010-03-11T01:13:11-07:00

70 Khaled Mahmoud