Iran captures four bomb suspects in southeast: state TV (AFP)

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TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran has arrested four people wearing explosives vests who are suspected of plotting attacks on behalf of Sunni militant group Jundallah, the state television website reported on Tuesday.

"The four members of this group who were arrested attempted to enter Sistan Baluchestan carrying explosive vests," the southeastern province's justice chief Ebrahim Hamidi told the website.

They now face "charges of espionage as well as cooperation with anti-revolutionary elements," Hamidi said.

In recent years, Jundallah (Army of God) has claimed a series of deadly attacks in Sistan-Baluchestan and adjacent provinces near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In December, it claimed an attack by multiple suicide bombers that killed 39 people in the city of Chabahar.

The group says it is fighting for the rights of the province's significant Sunni ethnic Baluchi community, who complain of discrimination in Shiite-dominated Iran.

Iranian officials charge that the group has received support from Western governments, as well as Israel and Pakistan.

A year ago, Iran hanged the group's leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, after capturing him on an intercepted flight.

Washington has now blacklisted Jundallah as a foreign terrorist organisation, in a move cautiously welcomed by Tehran.

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Iran, Iraq to shut down Camp Ashraf (AFP)

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TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran and Iraq have formed a joint committee with the Red Cross to shut down Camp Ashraf in Iraq which houses thousands of outlawed Iranian opponents, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Saturday.

"The camp will be shut down by the end of this year," Talabani said on the sidelines of a counter-terrorism summit in Tehran, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"For this, a tripartite committee has been set up by Iraq, Iran and the International Red Cross to make decisions and follow up on necessary measures to shut down the camp of this terrorist group," IRNA quoted him as saying.

The People's Mujahedeen established Camp Ashraf in the 1980s -- when now-executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime was at war with Iran -- as a base from which to launch military action against the Islamic republic.

Camp Ashraf is now home to around 3,400 people.

The People's Mujahedeen, which describes itself as both left-wing and Islamic, opposed the shah of Iran and now seeks to oust the clerical regime that took power in Tehran in the 1979 revolution.

Iranian intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi said the Mujahedeen was on the verge of "collapse," and added that his agencies were taking "measures" to speed up the process, the Mehr news agency reported.

"On this issue, (the intelligence apparatus) have had discussions with officials in Iraq to resolve the future of the camp Ashraf as soon as possible," Moslehi said, also speaking on the sidelines of the summit.

But he also extended an olive branch to Mujahedeen members who part ways with the group.

"Islamic leniency awaits those members of this terrorist group who leave it or escape Camp Ashraf and return to the arms of the Islamic republic of Iran's regime," Moslehi said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari had proposed during a Tuesday visit to Tehran the formation of a tripartite committee to "resolve the issues of Camp Ashraf."

"We have asked international organisations and European parliaments to encourage the (group's) members to leave Iraq, and to facilitate (the movement of) those members who seek to go to those countries," Zebari said.

The announcement was met with a "vigorous" condemnation by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the broad grouping that includes the People's Mujahedeen.

The NCRI said allowing Iran to "interfere in the issue of Ashraf is a red line that should not be crossed," and urged the International Committee of the Red Cross "not to lose credibility by participating in this plan of repression."

"The UN and the US government must take responsibility to protect the unarmed and defenceless people at Ashraf, and they will be held responsible for any attack that will target them," the NCRI warned in a statement.

Camp Ashraf has become a mounting problem for the Iraqi authorities since US forces transferred security for the camp in January 2009, and amid pressure from Tehran to hand over the members of the militant group.

On April 8, Iraqi security forces carried out a deadly raid on the camp, killing 34 members of the group.

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Iran's judiciary detains Ahmadinejad's ally (AP)

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TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's judiciary Thursday detained a close ally of the president, another step in a power struggle that is sweeping the Iranian leadership, according to a report on the Iranian state television station.

The TV report said Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh was in custody, and the judiciary pledged to issue a statement.

The arrest was the latest incident in a struggle involving President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the parliament and the powerful Iranian Muslim clergy.

Ahmadinejad is in danger of losing the backing of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran. Also, Ahmadinejad has been battling his parliament for supremacy, using a series of issues and appointments to promote his position.

Experts say the conflicts are mostly about internal Iranian politics and not about overall policy.

Ismail Kowsari, a lawmaker, told the semiofficial Mehr news agency that Malekzadeh was arrested over financial corruption allegations.

Malekzadeh resigned Tuesday, just days after he was appointed deputy foreign minister, responding to pressure from hard-liners, who view him as part of a movement seeking to weaken the role of Iran's powerful Muslim clerics.

Also on Thursday, Tabnak, a conservative news website reported that authorities detained Ali Asghar Parhizkar, head of an economic free zone in southern Iran on similar charges. The report could not be independently verified due to the weekend holidays in Iran.

Both of the officials are close allies of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the president's chief of staff, another target of hard-liners.

Over the past months, authorities have detained dozens of Ahmadinejad's allies.

Mashaei is sharply opposed by hard-liners and has been described by hard-line clerics as the head of a "deviant current" that seeks to elevate the values of pre-Islamic Persia and promote nationalism at the expense of clerical rule.

Ahmadinejad has strongly defended Mashaei, whose daughter is married to the president's son, saying the attacks against Mashaei are actually directed at him.

Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to set up Mashaei, his chief of staff, or another loyalist to succeed him in 2013 when Iran elects a new president. Also, both have been accused of seeking to control the next parliament by manipulating parliamentary elections slated for March 2012.

___

Nasser Karimi is at http://twitter.com/ncarrimi

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IAEA chief invited to Iran but wants concrete result (AFP)

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VIENNA (AFP) – UN atomic watchdog chief Yukiya Amano said Friday he had been invited to visit Iran by the head of the country's atomic organisation Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, but added he was awaiting clarification.

"Dr. Abbassi invited me to Tehran," Amano told journalists on the margins of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conference here Friday.

"I will consider visiting Tehran at an appropriate time but a constructive concrete result is needed," he added.

The West accuses Tehran of seeking to build a nuclear bomb under the guise of a civilian power programme, a charge which Iran strongly denies.

"We have covered various fields and I raised the issue of nuclear activities and the possible military dimension and I asked their operation to clarify these activities," Amano also said of his first meeting with Davani since the Iranian took over the post in February.

"We agreed to continue the dialogue," the IAEA chief added, following the talks this week.

The UN Security Council in New York has repeatedly ordered Tehran to halt all uranium enrichment until the IAEA has verified the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear activities.

But despite being targeted by four sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its refusal to suspend enrichment, Iran remains adamant that it will push ahead.

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Feds charge 2 with supplying Iranian military (AP)

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MACON, Ga. – Prosecutors in Georgia say two Americans were at the center of a complex plot to illegally ship aircraft parts to the Iranian military.

Prosecutors said Thursday that the two Americans have pleaded guilty to conspiring to illegally export fighter jet and attack helicopter parts from the U.S. to Iran. Five other people based in France, the United Arab Emirates and Iran have been charged with helping.

An indictment says the companies purchased parts from a firm run by Michael Todd, of Macon. The indictment also says Hamid Seifi of Chicago purchased aircraft parts from Todd on behalf of a company in Iran. The supplies were funneled to Iran through the French company.

Seifi has been sentenced to more than 4 years in prison. Todd's sentencing is scheduled for August.

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Afghan, Pakistan presidents in Iran three-way summit (AFP)

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TEHRAN (AFP) – The presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan arrived Friday in Tehran for a three-way summit with their Iranian counterpart and to attend an anti-terrorism conference, IRNA news agency reported.

The summit to be attended by President Asif Ali Zardari, Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes as the United States announced that it will draw down by 33,000 its contingent of 99,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of summer 2012.

Several hundred French soldiers have also been recalled from the country recently.

Britain and Germany, which have the largest presence in Afghanistan after the United States, have also declared their intention to reduce their contingent by the end of the year.

Iran has always been hostile to the presence of NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, saying this strengthened terrorist groups such as Taliban and Al-Qaeda more than it weakened them.

Tehran itself suffers from the activities of the armed Sunni Muslim group Jundallah around its border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Jundallah is on the United States' list of outlawed terrorist groups.

After the three-way summit, Zardari and Karzai will attend on Saturday an anti-terrorism conference alongside Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Iranian media reported.

Other nations will also attend the conference as observers.

Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court, which has issued two arrest warrants on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide in the Darfur region, where a bloody conflict has raged for eight years.

Iran, which is on the United States' list of state sponsors of terrorism, regularly accuses Israel and the US of plotting terrorist attacks against its territory.

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U.S. sanctions Iranian port operator, airline (Reuters)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday blacklisted a major Iranian port operator and the country's national airline, Iran Air to increase pressure on Tehran to curtail its alleged nuclear weapons program.

The sanctions target two key segments of Iran's transport infrastructure that the U.S. Treasury said were being used to aid the country's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Washington's latest actions prohibit U.S. entities from any transactions with Tidewater Middle East Co., which operates seven port facilities in Iran, and Iran Air, which serves 35 international and 25 domestic destinations with a fleet of about 40 aircraft.

The Treasury's designation of the firms as weapons proliferators also aims to freeze any assets they may have under U.S. jurisdiction.

The sanctions on Iran Air could increase difficulties in the airline's operations that started last year when airports in many Western countries stopped refueling Iran Air planes because of U.S. sanctions prohibiting the export of refined petroleum products to Iran.

A senior U.S. Treasury official acknowledged the action could reduce flight options for Iran's population.

The new sanctions "may have an impact on Iranian people (but) the Iranian people are not the target of these actions," the official told reporters.

Instead, the Treasury is trying to ratchet up pressure on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite military organization that U.S. officials say is assuming control of greater parts of Iran's economy as sanctions hamper private firms.

Iran rejects charges by Western powers it is engaged in military-linked nuclear work. The Islamic state on Tuesday said it had invited the head of the U.N. atomic energy agency to visit its nuclear facilities. Iran has rebuffed previous appeals by the U.N. body for information and access to its nuclear program to clarify allegations against it.

Treasury said Iran Air and its Iran Air Tours subsidiary were put on the sanctions list because its passenger aircraft have on numerous occasions transported military related electronic parts on behalf of Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics organization. The shipments have also included missiles, rockets and titanium sheets, a dual-use material that can be used in advanced weapons systems, the Treasury said.

The Treasury official said Tidewater was blacklisted because it is owned by the Revolutionary Guards. He added that he anticipated that shippers would avoid port facilities managed by the firm due to the U.S. sanctions.

This was not expected to have a major impact on Iran's oil trade, however, as Tidewater facilities only handle around 1 percent of Iran's oil shipments. And other facilities at ports where the company operates will remain accessible to U.S. and other international shippers.

The Treasury said the Tidewater-managed ports have been used to export arms or handle related materiel in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, including the main Shahid Rajaee container terminal at Bandar Abbas. Other ports affected by the sanctions include the Bandar Imam Khomeini grain terminal, and facilities at Bandar Anzali, Khorramshar, Assaluyeh, Aprin and Amir Abad

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Andrew Hay)

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