Rooyesh

The first conversation has to be about Iraqi militant Shi’a leader Muqtada al-Sadr. On Friday, he called on his followers to stop fighting Sunnis and focus their attacks instead on Americans. By Monday Sadr’s loyalists filled Najaf’s streets, closing down the city. It was the largest demonstration since the beginning of the war. And Sadr wasn’t even there to rally the loyalists. Official American military counts put the number of Sadr demonstrators at 5,000 to 7,000. The Najaf police chief estimated there were a half a million. The American press, which wasn’t invited, compromised at tens of thousands, however many that is.

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Hujjat al Islam Mehdi Karroubi sent two letters to Iran’s Guardian Jurist and Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei that changed his life forever. Karroubi who was parliamentary [majlis] speaker from 1989-1992 and 2000-20004 resigned from his post on June 19th, 2005. In those two letters, he renounced his positions as the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s advisor and as a member of the State Expediency Council and began his life as an oppositional reformist. The first letter was a ‘complaint’ and accusations against what he called a network, comprised of mosques, elements from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)

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Iranian intelligence operatives have been training Iraqi fighters inside Iran on how to use and assemble deadly roadside bombs known as EFPs, the U.S. military spokesman said Wednesday. Commanders of a splinter group inside the Shiite Mahdi Army militia have told The Associated Press that there are as many as 4,000 members of their organization that were trained in Iran and that they have stockpiles of EFPs, a weapon that causes great uneasiness among U.S. forces here because they penetrate heavily armored vehicles.

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The head of the International Red Cross in Tehran says he saw wounds on an Iranian diplomat who has alleged that US forces in Iraq tortured him. Peter Stoeker said there were marks on Jalal Sharafi’s feet, legs, back and nose but he was unable to say if they were the result of torture. Iranian media quoted Mr Sharafi saying the CIA tortured him “day and night”. Mr Sharafi was abducted in Iraq in February and released last week. The US denies any involvement in the case.

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