Iran: Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki sacked

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fired foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki, for undisclosed reasons. Mottaki, currently on an official visit to Senegal, was appointed as the country's foreign minister in 2005.

It has been said that there has not been any sign of discord between Ahmadinejad and Mottaki to indicate that the foreign minister might loose his job. Mottaki was the key negotiator in Iran's nuclear dealings with the West. Ahmadinejad has appointed Iran's top nuclear official Ali Akbar Salehi as an interim replacement for Mottaki.

There has been speculation that Mottaki's dismissal may be a strategic move among the ruling conservatives in Iran. It has also been said that Ahmadinejad did not entirely trust Mottaki who was the campaign manager for one of Ahmadinejad's election rivals, Ali Larijani.

Mattaki's firing may anger Ahmadinejad's conservative opponents in parliament, but the sacking is highly likely to have been supported by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. It may also be another indication that the supreme leader continues to back Ahmadinejad.

Source: BBC News

For more news and expert analysis about Iran, please see Iran Strategic Focus.

Former senior IRGC officers reveal tensions in Iranian regime

A remarkable series of interviews with former members of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard today offer a rare insight into one of the world's most oppressive regimes.

The four men, who have fled Iran and are in hiding in Turkey and Thailand, speak out in a documentary produced by Guardian Films and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

In testimony provided by the men, at least one of whom was part of last year's crackdown on opposition to the Iranian regime, the film reveals:

> Deep divisions within the Revolutionary Guard, the powerful military organisation at the heart of the Iranian state, which have widened since last year's repression of the so-called green opposition.

> Firsthand accounts of the measures taken to crush the popular protests that erupted in the wake of last June's presidential elections. The men interviewed describe the widespread use of rape and torture by the regime.

> A ruling elite so unsettled by the uprising that it had a plane on standby ready to fly the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to Syria at a moment's notice.

One former guard interviewed for the film says that until he fled the country earlier this year, he was part of the security team surrounding Khamenei. "I want people outside to know what is happening and what this regime is doing to them," says Muhammed Hussein Torkaman. He accuses the regime of betraying the values of the 1979 revolution in an effort to keep a grip on power.

Another former guard accuses the government of filling the ranks of the guards with young men from the countryside willing to carry out brutal assaults which more senior officers would not countenance. "The majority of these recruits ... have no idea of right or wrong," he says. The regime "hands them weapons and these young people come into the streets and commit acts of murder".

Iran's opposition leaders have called off rallies to mark the anniversary of last year's presidential election, in which Ahmadinejad controversially claimed victory. The decision is being seen as a setback for the pro-democracy movement.

Source: Guardian News

For more news and expert analysis about Iran please see Iran Strategic Focus or visit Menas Associates Newsroom.