Saturday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 4.23.2005:

Fight the Jews and Vanquish Them so as to Hasten the Coming of the Hidden Imam

The Middle East Media Research Institute:

The official Iranian news agency Fars, which is close to the conservative circles in Iran, published a statement by Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani, one of the Iranian regime's leading religious authorities, in which he advocates fighting the Jews in order to prepare the ground and to hasten the advent of the Hidden Imam, the Messiah according to Shiite belief.

The statement was removed from their website a few hours later. READ MORE

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• FOX News takes a look at how Iranian nuclear dreams challenge the Bush doctrine.
• Iran Focus reports that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards executed a number of teenage demonstrators in the streets of Ahwaz.
• Reuters reports the "official" death toll from ethnic unrest in southwest Iran remains five, rejecting higher figures from a rights group and exiled opposition activists.
• Radio Free Europe reports that we should expect the people arrested in the Ahvaz unrest to confess on television that they were involved with foreign elements.
• Adnkronos International reports that following the ethnic unrest in southern Iran, the government has decided to cut-off internet connections in many cities.
• Iran Press Service reports that Iran has offered the EU3 to allow the IAEA to install monitoring devices in its uranium enriching facilities.
• Janes Defence Weekly reports that inspectors from IAEA believe they have resolved a key question underlying Iran's nuclear programme: whether particles of enriched uranium detected in the country are due to previous contamination on imported equipment.
• Khaleej Times Online reports that some four million Iranians, or nearly six percent of the total population, can be classed as drug users.
• BBC News reports on Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of a historic trip to Israel.
• The Guardian reports that President Bush will receive a Pentagon plan for military strikes on Iran in June.
• World Tribune.com reports that Kuwait fears an eco-threat from Iran's reactor and the Saudi's want nuclear technology.
• And finally, UPI reports that Iran's southern Khuzestan province is sliding into chaos.