Iran News Round Up

A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by Ali Alfoneh, Ahmad Majidyar and Michael Rubin.  To receive this daily newsletter, please subscribe online.
 
(E) = Article in English

Politics 

• Presidential crisis:
  • Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addressing a group of experts and academics calls the current state of social justice "unsatisfactory," rejecting Ahmadinejad’s stated goal.
  • Rasoul Sanayi-Rad, Sobh-e Sadeq columnist, discusses "the great deviation" as the result of "new Hojjatiyeh," reference to a pre-revolution religious charitable and political organization banned after the revolution.
  • Yadollah Javani, Revolutionary Guards Political Directorate chief, warns against "the new sedition" and "deviation," and compares Ahmadinejad with the late Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. 
  • Mahramaneh News, close to Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, for the first time openly criticizes Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, who has accused Mashaei of "bewitching" Ahmadinejad.
    • Mahramaneh News also points out that the concept of super natural phenomena like the jinn is a Koranic concept often referred to by Prophet Muhammad. 
  • Following Mehdi Khazali's repeated attacks against Ahmadinejad, Mahramaneh Online, close to Mashaei, publishes a lengthy interview in which Khazali defends Said Emami, the head of an Intelligence Ministry project who assassinated a large number of Iranian intellectuals during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami.
• Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani, son of the former president, plans to run for parliament.
  • Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani refutes the story.
• Interior Minister Mohammad-Mostafa Najjar appoints Sowlat Mortazavi as the head of the Iran Election Headquarters responsible for the March 2012 parliamentary election.

Diplomacy

• Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi addresses the Revolutionary Guards General Staff: "Relationship with Egypt is vital and strategic for us and these ties must be established as soon as possible... The popular movement inside Iran in defense of the people of Bahrain has heartened them and has made them believe in the future..."

Military and Security

• According to Karshenasan-e Iran-e Sabz (Green Experts of Iran), the Revolutionary Guards deployed a 65-man group with four cargo planes transporting arms to Damascus, Syria. According to the source this is the second shipment to Damascus during the past month. The source also writes that a certain Commander Jabbari, the head of the Vali-ye Amr unit of the Revolutionary Guards heads the expedition which is based at the Emar Operational Base in Damascus.
• Revolutionary Guards Deputy Hossein Salami: "Presence of the Guards in the aviation industry is international, strategic and national."  

Photo of the Day

• A Pakistani protester wears the photo of Supreme Leader Khamenei.