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Prayer Time
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Dawn: 5:18
Sunrise: 6:47
Noon: 13:02
Evening: 19:35
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Weather Guide
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SAT |
SUN |
Tehran: |
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High: |
30oC |
30oC |
Low: |
18oC |
17oC |
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Athens |
18 |
18 |
Ankara |
7 |
5 |
Paris |
15 |
7 |
New Delhi |
24 |
23 |
Rome |
17 |
16 |
Riyadh |
27 |
24 |
Frankfurt |
10 |
10 |
Cairo |
21 |
20 |
Kuwait City |
25 |
22 |
Karachi |
24 |
25 |
Copenhagen |
14 |
10 |
London |
10 |
9 |
Moscow |
6 |
4 |
Madrid |
14 |
13 |
Vienna |
8 |
8 |
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Identification
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Published by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA)
Address:
Iran Cultural & Press Institute, #212 Khorramshahr Avenue Tehran/Iran
Managing Director: Mohammad T. Roghaniha
Executive Editor: Amin Sabooni
Editorial Dept. Tel: 8755761-2
Editorial Dept. Fax: 8761869
Advertising Dept. Tel: 8753119, 8757702, 8733764
Internet Address:
www.iran-daily.com
E-mail Address:
iran-daily@iran-daily.com
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Rafsanjani Tells IAEA:
You Force, We Sue
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
TEHRAN, Sept. 17--State Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani here Friday said if the International Atomic Energy Agency issues a resolution obliging Iran to cease uranium enrichment, Iran has the right to file a complaint with the Hague Tribunal.
According to IRNA, Rafsanjani, who was delivering this week's Friday prayers, added, "The IAEA's main responsibility is to assist countries use atomic energy for peaceful purposes. The agency is duty-bound to remove the technical and security problems of countries in this respect and they are committed not to pursue military applications of nuclear energy."
He maintained that on the whole, the IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei's recent report on Iran contains positive points.
"The agency cannot bully us or violate the rule of law. Iran has proven that it does not succumb to bullying policies and will insist on its rights," he said.
Rafsanjani, a former president, noted that four different currents are pursuing ongoing discussions at the IAEA these days.
"One such current is Iran which believes it has the right to gain access to peaceful nuclear technology. Another current is the US, which thinks Iran should not have access to nuclear technology, because its relations with the US are not satisfactory. The Americans have even explicitly asserted that if there had been another regime in power in Iran, which had good relations with the US, they would not have been so tough about Iran's use of nuclear energy. The third current is the non-aligned movement, which believes in our rights.
Although its member-states are not very courageous, they believe that the agency cannot deny Iran's right to access nuclear technology. The fourth current comprises the Europeans who deep down share the American standpoint; they speak with a wiser language but are sly," he said.
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Six Killed in Baghdad Suicide Bombings
An Iraqi fireman runs next to a burning car, following an explosion near a police station in Rashid Street, central Baghdad, Sept. 17. (Reuters Photo)
No Foreign Fighters Among Fallujah Victims
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 17--At least six people were killed Friday when two suicide car bombs exploded in Baghdad as gunbattles raged in a known hotspot and 44 people died in US air strikes near the insurgent bastion of Fallujah.
As the interim Iraqi government struggled to quell the surging violence, Iraqi police, backed by national guard and US forces, launched a crackdown in the capital, arresting 63 people, including Syrians, Lebanese and Egyptians, AFP reported.
The action came a day after two Americans and a Briton were kidnapped, increasing fears among a jittery expatriate community in Baghdad.
A suicide bomber rammed his car into a police vehicle and exploded as an Iraqi police patrol was stopping people from crossing into the Baghdad troublespot of Haifa Street, where gunbattles raged in the morning.
A health ministry official said five people were killed and 20 others wounded in the attack, most of them policemen.
Helicopters hovered overhead and US armor rolled towards the site of the fighting and heavy machine-gun fire was heard up to four hours after the blast.
Overnight, several air raids hit the village of Zoba, south of the notorious rebel bastion of Fallujah, demolishing 13 houses, in what the US military called a "precision strike on a terrorist compound" of suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi.
The health ministry said 44 people were killed and 27 wounded, and a doctor at the Fallujah general hospital said many of the victims were women and children.
Sunni Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdelghafur Al-Samarrai lashed out at the US military for the bombings.
"If you have intelligence on the location of Zarqawi and his elements why don't you surround and capture them," he said during his weekly sermon in Baghdad.
As many as 60 foreign fighters were killed in one strike on a "confirmed Abu Musab Zarqawi terrorist meeting site", the US military said, although it was impossible to independently verify the claim.
Against the backdrop of violence, agreement on expanding a NATO training mission in Iraq remained blocked, with several countries still expressing reservations amid French resistance over the precise command structure.
British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said London could deploy extra troops to boost security if needed ahead of January elections in Iraq.
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Gov't Blamed For Tragic Murders
TEHRAN, Sept. 17--Tehran MP Ahmad Tavakkoli said Friday the government must assume responsibility for the tragic murders of 29 people, of which 26 were children, in Pakdasht, about 30 km from Tehran.
"How come a tragic incident has taken place and the people responsible for law and order are indifferent? ... How is it that the intelligence apparatus and the police did not know anything about such an ugly incident for two years? People definitely want to know why," he told ISNA.
The lawmaker stressed that there is no single reason behind different social phenomena.
"Unwanted phenomena such as murder and prostitution are related to social and economic maladies such as serious class rift, materialism, love of money, promiscuity and indifference toward moral and ethical security, which have become widespread in recent years ... The sad part is that in the past 10 or 15 years, ethical and moral considerations have been ignored and different governments have not carried out their duties effectively," he said.
Tavakkoli emphasized that economic and cultural policies that lean towards the West and which highlight the Western ethical criteria are responsible for many socioeconomic maladies.
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Chechen Warlord Threatens More Attacks After Beslan
Shamil Basayev speaking to journalists in Grozny, October 15, 1999 (AFP File Photo)
MOSCOW, Sept. 17--Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility on Friday for the Russian school siege in which more than 320 hostages were killed, half of them children, and threatened more attacks by any means he saw fit.
Basayev, Russia's most wanted man, expressed regret for the bloody outcome in Beslan, blaming it on the Kremlin. He made clear there would be no let-up in rebel attacks in the future in the campaign for an independent Chechnya, AFP reported.
"We are not bound by any circumstances, or to anybody, and we will continue to fight as is convenient and advantageous to us, and by our rules," he said in a statement.
The statement, that also gave a chilling account of his spending on recent attacks that have killed well over 400 people in less than two weeks, appeared on rebel website www.kavkazcenter.com a day after President Vladimir Putin ruled out negotiations with Chechen separatists.
Putin said the Beslan attackers were part of international terrorism.
Basayev also confirmed Russian suspicions his group had also masterminded suicide bomb blasts that brought down two passenger planes over Russia on August 24 killing 90 people and two other bomb attacks in Moscow.
Basayev said units of his Riyadus-Salikhin group had carried out the September 1 attack on the school in southern Russia, seizing more than 1,000 hostages.
It ended just over two days later in a bloodbath with Russian special forces storming the school amid bomb blasts and shooting. Basayev, taking up Putin's charges of links between Chechen separatists and a wider international network of terror, denied any links with Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
"I don't know bin Laden. I don't get money from him, but I wouldn't turn it down," he said.
Basayev outlined the costs of recent attacks. The plane explosions cost $4,000 to carry out, two explosions in Moscow $7,000 and the bill for the Beslan attack came to 8,000 euro ($9,700), he said. The heavily-bearded Basayev has been fighting Russian forces for over 13 years. He is reported to have lost 11 relatives, including his wife, in Russian attacks in Chechnya in 1995 and has only one foot after treading on a mine in 2000.
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US, EU Trio Agree On Iran Draft Resolution
VIENNA, Austria, Sept. 17--The United States compromised with France, Britain and Germany on a toughly-worded UN nuclear resolution on Iran that calls for an immediate halt to Tehran's uranium enrichment program, a Western diplomat said.
"It's a text that all six countries can live with," the diplomat close to the talks told Reuters late on Thursday, referring to discussions between Canada, Australia and the European Union's "big three" on Iran's nuclear program, which Washington says is a cover for a nuclear weapons program, Reuters reported.
Iran's program for uranium enrichment, a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel for power plants or nuclear weapons, is the most controversial part of Tehran's atomic plans, which it says are limited to electricity generation.
Washington says Iran is developing nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian nuclear power program. Tehran denies the charge, insisting its nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful.
The preliminary agreement, which still has to be approved by most of the 35 nations on the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ended nearly a week of discussions on the text, which the diplomat said would set the stage for a November showdown over Iran's nuclear program.
Another diplomat said the United States had to abandon its demand for an "automatic trigger" deadline forcing the IAEA to report Iran to the UN Security Council if it did not meet a number of demands, including suspending enrichment activities.
The diplomat summarized the key points of the resolution, saying it called for the IAEA board to decide in November "whether or not to take appropriate steps" regarding Iran's commitments under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).
The diplomat said that this meant that the board would decide whether to report Iran to the UN Security Council, which can impose economic sanctions, for violating the NPT by hiding its uranium enrichment program for nearly two decades.
The draft text, which diplomats said would likely be adopted on Friday or Saturday with only minor changes, also called on Iran to answer all of the IAEA's outstanding questions about its nuclear program by the time the board meets again in November.
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Yoko Hopes Peace Award Will Protect Vanunu
LONDON, Sept. 17--Veteran peacenik, artist and musician Yoko Ono has given Mordechai Vanunu a peace prize founded in her late husband's memory, an award she hopes will keep the Israeli nuclear whistleblower safe.
Vanunu was barred by Israel's highest court in July from leaving the country, with judges ruling he remained a threat to national security despite serving 18 years in jail for leaking atomic secrets to a British newspaper, Reuters reported.
Vanunu was abducted by Israeli agents and convicted of treason in 1986 after discussing his work as a nuclear technician with the Sunday Times.
His revelations led independent experts to conclude Israel had between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons--a superpower arsenal--and all but blew away the Jewish state's policy of "strategic ambiguity" over its non-conventional capabilities.
"It's possible that somebody might attempt to murder him, that's the main concern," Ono told Reuters in an interview to announce the award.
Supporters fear for Vanunu's safety in Israel, where most people despise him as a traitor and see the country's presumed nuclear capability as an insurance policy against superior imaginary foes.
In an interview conducted by an Israeli intermediary and broadcast by the BBC in early June, Vanunu said he spoke out because he wanted to save Israel from a "new Holocaust". But he has also questioned Israel's right to exist.
Ono said she hoped Vanunu could collect the award in person at a New York ceremony next month, to be held in the week her late husband, the murdered Beatle John Lennon, would have turned 64.
The biennial LennonOno prize was first given in 2002, when Israeli Zvi Goldstein and Palestinian Khalil Rabah each won for artistic contributions to peace in their homeland.
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Failed Doctrine
By Ali Taheri
Israel's so-called military doctrine is based on the "concept" of preemptive strikes on and fighting the war on enemy territory. The same doctrine was seen in Israeli raids on Egyptian airports in the Second Arab-Israeli war in 1967, its occupation of Lebanon and its aerial attack on Iraq's atomic reactor in Osirak in 1997. The Israeli Defense Force describes this doctrine as "preparedness for combat and strike effective blows on hostile forces or potential sources of threat."
The occupying power pursues a similar approach inside Israel.
The point is that the military strength of Palestinian resistance organizations in the First (1987-92) and Second (2000-till now) Intifada has been on the decline, hence there are ambiguities about the effectiveness of the doctrine of preemptive strikes.
The reason is that the Zionist army has been forced to engage in a quasi-war the best definition for which is "operations in highly populated Palestinian areas for extended period." The result has been large-scale death and destruction in the occupied districts leading to more violence and hatred of Israelis.
In responding to the Second Intifada, Israel hawks are trying hard to justify building a wall in occupied West Bank under the pretext of "stopping Palestinian infiltration" into the illegal Jewish townships. But the real purpose of the wall is to help the Israeli military maintain its clout and minimize psychological damage and loss of life.
The respected Jane's Defence weekly in its September 1 edition reported that in wake of the 'Defense Shield' operations in Palestinian territories in 2002, the Israeli Army utilized all its military and intelligence sources, and after 18 months the outcome is clear. Based on this report, Israel's defense minister, Shaul Mofaz claimed that over 90 percent of the attacks planned against Israel are found and botched.
According to Mofaz, Palestinian organizations have strong motivation to attack targets inside Israel, but their capabilities for successfully implementing such operations have declined drastically.
One point about the ability of Palestinian resistance groups is their resilience and the power to reemerge after receiving deadly blows from the enemy.
After Hamas suffered huge losses in wake of the murder of two of its top leaders, namely Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi earlier this year, it was natural that the organization review its strategy. Hence, from March till August 31, Hamas activities almost grind to a halt.
However, its operations on August 31 showed Israel remains vulnerable despite its rhetoric and terror tactics.
From the point of view of the Palestinians who live under the brutal occupation, the only serious concern of the Zionist entity is the power and influence of the resistance movement. The situation is reminiscent of the US-Vietnam war, or the US-Iraq conflict wherein a superpower is unable to handle a much smaller and weaker enemy.
In the same way that US soldiers had big questions about the wisdom and legitimacy of military operations in Vietnam and Iraq, Israeli military officers have serious doubts about the legitimacy of the Zionist operations.
It is for this very reason that Israel's military doctrine has become a bit too vulnerable.
A letter signed by several Israeli military pilots in which they refused to fly over occupied territories, or remarks made by a top Israeli general who lambasted Israel's military policies in Palestinian lands in an unprecedented manner, demonstrate that although Zionist operations are ostensibly successful, they have all but failed to dislodge the Intifada or break the morale of its supporters.
Israel may liquidate one Palestinian "enemy" by use of its formidable military force and state terrorism. But the fact remains that in the process it creates many more new ones are willing to die for their cause.
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