Friday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 8.26.2005:

Iran had designed N-capable cruise missiles

IranMania:

A prominent Iranian dissident on Friday claimed Tehran had mastered the design of nuclear capable cruise missiles secretly sold to the Islamic Republic by Ukraine and was on the verge of producing copies.

Alireza Jafarzadeh said the 12 weapons were now in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and also fired off new claims about the corps' past links with disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan, according to AFP. READ MORE

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

• Iran Focus reported that two former United States hostages held captive in Iran for 444 days in Tehran in 1979 told a Persian-language satellite channel that they have no doubts that Iran’s new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the supervisors of their interrogators. Another former hostage, Kevin Hermening, recounted how Ahmadinejad tried to force him to open the embassy’s safe after the takeover.
  
• Eli Lake, The NY Sun reported that Iraqi Security may be compromised and Iran is of particular concern.
• Reuters reported that within a month Iran hopes to present a new plan to resolve its nuclear stand-off with the West to European Union powers.
• Iran Focus reported the cryptic maneuvering of reformist leaders attending en masse the wedding of the grandson of the elderly ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri.
• Expatica reported that Iran's newly-appointed chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said an agreement was possible with the European Union over the country's controversial nuclear program.
• The Billings Gazette reported that Tehran's top nuclear envoy said Iran will not negotiate away its right to enrich uranium and shrugged off threats of possible U.N. action.
• Andrew Ellson, Times UK reported that this week the price of a barrel of oil surged towards $70 a barrel, near the inflation-adjusted price last seen in 1980, shortly after the Iranian revolution. One country is causing particular concern: Iran.
• Gregory Scoblete, Tech Central Station argues that neither carrots nor sticks are going to end Iran's quest for nuclear weapons.
• And finally, Sean Penn, The San Francisco Chronicle, the final installment. The trip home.