Tuesday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 2.14.2006:

Calls for Iran to send suicide bombers to attack Europe and US interests and more.

• Iran Press News reported that Khamnei's newspaper calls for suicide bombings in Denmark and elsewhere in Europe.
• Iran Focus reported that a senior commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) vowed that the Islamic Republic’s suicide volunteers abroad were being placed on readiness alert to attack Unites States and Israeli interests.
• Iran Press News reported that Ahmadinejad website site called for abandoning security for various embassies in Tehran.
  

Iran Crosses the "RedLine."

• The Times reported that Iran has started to inject uranium feedstock gas into centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear facility, crossing an internationally agreed "red line" on the path to producing the material for atomic weapons.
• Reuters reported that Iran said talks with Russia this week to discuss proposals to process nuclear fuel for Iranian reactors on Russian soil had been postponed, not canceled.

Rumors of War.

• Eli Lake, The New York Sun reported that Secretary of State Rice declined to deny that America has recently stepped up its planning to bomb suspected Iranian nuclear facilities.
• Monsters & Critics reported that Germany`s government is bickering over a possible military strike on Iran.
• Xinhuanet reported that Bulgaria as a NATO member will join a possible strike on Iran.
• Azerbaijani TV station ANS reported that the Azerbaijani-Iranian border is being reinforced in connection with a possible US attack on Iran.

Iranian Dissidents.

• National Review Online published a conversation with Iranian Dissident Fakhravar.
• Iran Press News reported that a political prisoner in danger of being executed in Rejaiishahr prison in Tehran suburb of Karadj.
• Iran Press News reported that an Iraqi cleric was spurred by the Islamic regime to misrepresent dissident Ayatollah Montazeri's mental health.

The Tehran Bus Strikers.

• The International Transport Workers Federation labor movement around the world is calling for an International Day of Protest over Tehran Bus Company Union - February 15, 2006.
• Iran Press News reported that the bus drivers union of Tehran sent a heartrending message to French Unions asking for solidarity and assistance.

More Protests in Iran.

• Iran Press News reported that two hundred of the 620 miners from Sangrood (Province of Gilan) who have not been paid for an entire year made their way to Tehran to protest.

Analysis.

• Mehdi Khalaji, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy reported on the miscommunication between Iranian Society and the West on Iran's nuclear program. A must read.
• William R. Hawkins, The Washington Times thinks that in referring Iran to the UNSC, the US is walking into a trap.
• USA Today reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to USA TODAY's Barbara Slavin in an hour-long interview.

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

• Daily Star reported that Druze MP Walid Jumblatt attacked Hizbullah, saying it is "an armed force which controls the lawless South and which serves the best interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
• And finally, Reuters reported that Iran said it would continue to block the BBC's Persian-language Web site until Britain's public service broadcaster changed its "anti-Iranian tendency, " adding that the site was read by about one third of Iran's 7 million Internet users.