Iran News Round Up February 13, 2012

Revolution Day Poster (Photo credit: gordontour)

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

• The Islamic Republic celebrates the Revolution Day:
  • Ahmadinejad addressing the crowd on the Revolution Day praises Iran’s progress on all fronts. 
  • According to Khabar Online, close to parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, there were no placards of Ahmadinejad among the demonstrators celebrating the Revolution Day.
  • The crowd in Tehran chanted slogans against Rafsanjani as Rafsanjani and his followers showed up at the Tehran Revolution Day rally.
• Hamid Rowhani, head of the Historical Studies Foundation, calls the Ahmadinejad group “the Hojjatiyeh Society,” a reference to the pre-revolutionary semi clandestine Hojjatiyeh Charitable Society banned by Grand Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini. Rowhani also accuses the Ahmadinejad group of believing in “the Satanic thesis that one must spread corruption to hasten the emergence of the Imam of the Era, and of expanding embezzlement, corruption, theft of public funds and moral and economic corruption.”
• Ayatollah Mohi al-Din Haeri Shirazi, Assembly of Experts member, says that “the Mahdavi government [government of the 12th Imam of the Shi'a] in Iran began with the victory of the revolution…” Haeri Shirazi added that the Twelfth Imam remains hidden during this government, and “his deputy, His Holiness [Ali Khamenei] is in charge of the affairs.”

Diplomacy

• Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani addresses the crowd in Mashhad on the occasion of the Revolution Day:
  • “I urge some regional states that were on Saddam’s side during the [Iran/Iraq] war and are now conspiring against the Iranian nation along with the United States to stop doing so, since the clemency of the Iranian nation towards them will not be repeated…” Larijani added that the regional countries should not follow the policies of the United States towards Iran hoping to find “burned ground,” and concluded: “If there is a conspiracy against our nation, it will spread to the entire region.”

Israeli Embassy Officials Attacked in India and Georgia

JERUSALEM — Unidentified bombers attacked staff at Israeli embassies far apart in India and Georgia on Monday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, and images from New Delhi showed what appeared to be a minivan consumed by flames.

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Mustafa Quraishi/Associated Press

Indian officials examined a car belonging to the Israeli Embassy after an explosion tore through it in New Delhi on Monday.

“There was one attempted attack, and one successful, as it were,” Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, was quoted by Reuters as saying. “In both cases, the people concerned worked with the Israeli embassies.”

He also confirmed that a bomb had been found in a car belonging to a staffer at the embassy in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, which was defused by local police.

Indian police said at least one person had been injured in New Delhi but there was no immediate word on fatalities.

Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry, confirmed that a bomb was discovered affixed to the car of an employee of the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi.

“The car of a Georgian national working for the Israeli embassy was mined,” he said. “The embassy employee noticed a suspicious object and he called the police, and the police successfully defused it before it went off.”

He said the car was not parked close to the embassy at the time. He said this was the first attempted attack on an employee of the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi. Police have not yet identified any suspects, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either of the apparently coordinated attacks.